Crazy Digest: Kanazawa, Japan

Date of Travel: 26-29 July 2014

Kanazawa Station

This is a continuation of the previous post at Takayama & Shirakawa-Go.

3 nights at Kanazawa is too long. You end up doing many things that you normally wouldn't do. So here's our drive trip to some really small towns around Japan. We arrived Kanazawa late at night and checked-in to the newly opened Holiday Inn Kanazawa. At 13,300¥/night with breakfast for a huge twin room, it was worth every penny. On the night that we arrived, we walked to the nearby Omicho market and somehow wasn't impressed with the restaurants there. We randomly picked a restaurant nearby, and wanted to go back to take our car and head out for a drive. On our way back, we heard fireworks and only JUST realized that the big fireworks festival was on that night. We ran back to the hotel and asked them where is the fireworks, and wanted to drive there. The reception pointed us to the 15th Floor. He insisted we go there. And so we did, and we arrived at the hotel's library which was pitch black, and everyone was sitting by the windows catching the fireworks. So lucky, we got to enjoy the hour long fireworks in the comfort of our hotel.

This room has 2 single beds, and 2 toilets! This picture show half of the room, the other half is exactly the same.

Seafood is very fresh in Kanazawa

Enjoying the fireworks festival from the 15th Floor of Holiday Inn Kanazawa

So what do people do at Kanazawa?

1. Kenroku-en Garden
The most famous place is the Kenrokuen Garden. Why? It is supposed to be one Japan's "three most beautiful landscaped gardens". And what is the star attraction of this place? The Kotojitoro Lantern, uniquely built with 2 legs instead of one. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... sorry I don't get it.

The 2-legged Kotojitoro Lantern at Kenrokuen Garden, Kanazawa

I still don't get what's so unique about the lantern

2. Kanazawa Castle
Just beside Kenrokuen Garden, is the Kanazawa Castle. We walked until we hit the paid entrance and turned back. I'm not really into looking at castles, especially when I don't know the history

3. Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art

I wanted to visit this museum for this very bizarre art piece. In order to take this photo, you have to wait at the top, and hope someone pays for a ticket and will suddenly appear in the pool.