Day 12 - Kenrokuen gardens, Higashi Chaya and Sushi Ippei

For our last day in Kanazawa, our plan was to visit Kenrokuen gardens, one of the top 3 gardens in Japan to see and to visit Higashi Chaya, the geisha district.

Firstly, at Omicho market, some breakfast loaches :P

 

 Then it was off to the gardens. I think we got a bit lost but the gardens have multiple entrances. Not sure where we ended up, but it cost us only 300 yen to enter and you get an English map/brochure with it. The gardens are very large and you can spend quite a bit of time going all the way around. What was important to us was that there was shade and seats. Again I'm complaining that it was hot, I think Japan was having an unseasonable heat wave on the few weeks that we were there.

The most famous sight in Kenrokuen gardens is the 2 legged lantern, with one foot in the water.

There is also Japan's oldest fountain within the gardens. This fountain does not use any pumps, but relies upon the differential pressure from a higher pond to feed it.
To tell the truth, we like gardening, and the gardens were nice, but we did get bored after a while.

I like the pole holding up the sprawling branches.

Next to the gardens is the castle, which we decided not to enter, but there is a nice lane of souvenir shops selling mainly gold-leaf containing souvenirs. And there is that perpetual giant ice cream cone.

From there Higashi Chaya was not too far away and looking at those giant ice cream cones meant that we had to get one...

With real gold leaf of course! Actually, this was a really good ice cream, the best we had in Japan so far. It's almost as if there was some condensed milk in it to make it taste richer. This was from a rather fancy shop selling items containing gold leaf, we didn't buy any, just the ice cream.

Pretty tea houses and less crowded than Gion in Kyoto. We decided to pay 700 yen to enter a former geisha house/museum.

As usual, it's shoes off and follow the laminated English map. My verdict on the place, not worth it. There are not many signs explaining what the rooms are for, what could have happened in it. Of interest is the golden tatami room.

To me, the most interesting room was actually a walkway. They called it a bush-warbler's walkway as it would squeak as you walk on it, alerting the hostess below that the guest had gotten up. I had been reading a book called "Across the Nightingale floor" which is a similar floor, but was for security reasons. Sentries would hear the floor squeak and realise that there was an intruder. But I digress...

Here's the floor. Hubby trying to make it squeak, you had to find the right plank to stand on to make it squeak.

We walked around the district for a while, but there were not many places to go on, or we couldn't understand the signs outside and decided not to go in. It is a well preserved district, and I think many still function as tea houses. Much quieter than Kyoto if you want to experience traditional Japanese housing and tea houses. Even the sewer covers are pretty!

By then, we decided it was close to dinner time. We headed all the way back across town towards the Katamachi area. This time the shops were open. We ended getting an interesting drink at the convenience store. It's like a sports drink with the salt. Tastes good, especially since we've been walking around in the sun all day and sweating. 

In the Katamachi area, we were not that interested in the clothes shops on offer, but we wandered around until it was time to go to our choice of sushi restaurant for the night.

Sushi Ippei
We decided on this place as it came out as number 1 on TripAdvisor. The place is run by a husband and wife team, the hostess speaks relatively good English and we were the first ones through the door for the night.

It is a small sushi bar, the photo shows the seating capacity of the place. The host prepares all the sushi from behind the bar, taking items from the glass fridge in front. 

In this place, you eat with your hands; you are given a wet cloth to wipe your hands, unlimited tea and a small saucer for soy sauce. The hostess explained all of this to us and recommended a set menu, which gives you a variety of sushi.

We went with that and then ordered extra from another menu. All the sushi is placed directly on the counter. Pickled ginger is also placed on the counter!








Just some of our feast...
They were very generous with the uni. Also, if you have never tried raw prawns on sushi....it is the best...really creamy. A flavour that is often lost when the prawns get cooked.

The extra menu. We amused ourselves by trying all the strange named items.

Halfway through our feast, a local couple came in. One thing I don't like about Japan is that smoking is allowed indoors. It didn't really bother me as they were sitting further down. Turns out one of them was going over to Australia for a holiday! Cairns and Queensland in general are touted as great holiday spots to the Japanese. Questions about Australia flew back and forth, with the hostess as the interpreter! I was also fascinated at the amount of sake the couple could drink. My gawd..cup after cup...and they were not small cups!

The verdict? Great..the sushi did taste fresh, and I do like the fresh prawns and uni. We spent 5000yen each ($50), but I think the hostess took the price down a bit as I doubt we would have reached that nice round number. She even said she was sorry, but the price was a bit high! We didn't complain, you could easily spend that much on a restaurant back in Adelaide and it was worth the whole experience.

Our photo op with the chef and hostess.

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They are found at:
1-5-29, Kata-machi, Kanazawa

Well, that was the end of our Kanazawa experience. I would definitely recommend that this city be included in your tour of Japan. It has several things of interest, good markets, good food, samurai, gardens, tea houses and of course, gold. 

Next, we were off to Takayama, up in the mountains.