Things to do in Kanazawa and Nagano

[defspace]

Howdy all,

We'll be spending a week and a half in Tokyo (Kokobunji) in mid March but we're planning head out to Kanazawa and Nagano for a few days. We'll be hitting up the castle and Kenroku-en garden in Kanazawa, but no real plans other than that. We'll head over to the Jigokudani monkey park from Nagano, but I reckon we could spend a few hours (or a day?) in Nagano proper.

I'm also open to recommendations for stuff to do in Tokyo. We'll probably end up buying a JR Rail Pass.

We're into: parks, public open space, museums, public events, things you can't do anywhere else
Not into: alcohol, things we can do anywhere else.

very open ended, I know. That's the point - the collective wisdom of the Vsalon never ceases to amaze me.

Thanks

[vertical_doug]

Nagano is both a prefecture name and a city name. The monkey spring is in Nakano. I assume you are taking the Hokuriku Shinkansen from your trip schedule.
If you are not staying in an Onsen in Kanazawa, I would definitely spend a night in Nagano and stay at an Onsen. You can see if you can stay at Seni Onsen (Iwanoyu) which is a onsen in a cave. It's cool. 仙仁温泉 岩の湯 - 秘境温泉 神秘の湯 (its in japanese, but you can see the photos)

Yawataya Isogoro is one of the traditional pepper spice shop near Zenkoji Temple in Nagano City proper. You should visit the temple and buy the spice (shichimi) literally seven flavor. Its also cool.
Shichimi | Japan Experience
八幡屋礒五郎本店 | 店舗のご案内 | 根元 八幡屋礒五郎
just toggle to english
商品のご案内 | 根元 八幡屋礒五郎

[j44ke]

Go see the Nomura Samurai House. Very interesting visual history of the samurai culture's role (and continuation of that role) in Japanese society. The Nomura samurai family evidently formed what eventually became Nomura Group. Best part of the house is the garden with a flowing stream running through the garden and under the house, and the museum which contains letter's from the shogun thanking members of the Nomura samurai clan for sending the heads of their enemies in language not dissimilar from current corporate language.

Also we thought the fish market in Kanazawa was very cool. A relaxed open atmosphere where you can go to nearly any of the stalls and eat your way through the entire market. My wife had oysters for lunch that were pretty amazing.

I can highly recommend staying overnight at the James Turrell House of Light in Tokamachi, which is reasonably easily reached from either Tokyo or Nagano. We used the luggage transfer service from our hotel in Tokyo to send our luggage directly to our hotel in Kanazawa, then just carried an overnight bag (backpack) to Tokamachi to stay overnight in the House of Light. The house was built in local style, except for its retractable roof that exposes an interior room to the sky overhead - once in the morning and once in the evening - accompanied with a finally tuned color projection on the surrounding ceiling. At night, you sleep on futons in tatami rooms. Hard to describe the whole experience, but it is really truly amazing. And it includes a great home cooked meal (save leftover rice & fish etc. and tea for breakfast) for dinner and a crazy cool onsen.

Speaking of onsen, we stayed in this crazy retro-60's hotel right at the northeast corner of the Imperial Park called Kanazawa Hakuchoro Hotel Sanraku. The decor is clean and tidy, a little faded perhaps, but the service is A++ and they have their own onsen/spa for guests, plus one of the most bountiful breakfasts we encountered in Japan. And the location is super convenient.

The food overall in Kanazawa was very very good. We ate in a tiny restaurant the hotel concierge recommended (Fuwari is the famous one, but we ate at Fuwari Ajichi, the smaller "sister" restaurant - both are recommended) basically just a long room with a bar and stools. Behind the bar were just about as many prep people, wait staff and chefs as there were customers. English was a bit of a challenge, but after some energetic show and tell we had a great meal. Dishes just kept coming over the bar at us and we kept eating them. Mostly seafood but some vegetables and all of it good.

Reservations at restaurants are recommended (why we didn't eat at Fuwari but instead ate at Fuwari Ajichi,) thought the concierge at the hotel seemed eminently capable.

Best coffee was ironically at a tiny mom-and-pop (kids too) called Dumbo Coffee. The proprietors had (surprise!) lived in Brooklyn for a few years. This was near the Samurai House neighborhood.

In the Imperial Park, there is a large bird of prey called the Black Kite. You will see signs warning people about them. The warning has to do with your lunch. The birds are quite skilled in flight, and they have learned that people on their phones are often inattentive enough that the kites can float down and nab their lunches. We saw two get stolen on the huge lawn below the castle walls. The kites are very good at this.

The contemporary museum is excellent for a small museum, and it is very popular with Japanese tourists so there is art and then there is people watching. Unfortunately there is no air conditioning (or very little) in the museum, and yet there were still Japanese pulling on sweaters and jackets while they were in the building. Curious. The building is also great, and outside there is a Olafur Eliasson work that kids seem to love.

The street between the contemporary museum and the park area to the north (can't remember the name) is lined with ceramics shops. Some of the stuff is sort of boring, but we found a few nice pieces. Worth a stroll.

I think there is a high speed train to Kanazawa from Tokyo now. I know there is one from Kanazawa to Kyoto, because we took that train. Beautiful views along the way.

I definitely recommend the baggage delivery service. We used it to shuttle baggage ahead of us from Tokyo to Kyoto and from Tokyo to Kanazawa. It made the train more relaxing because we weren't schlepping luggage. Also the concierges in every hotel we used were amazing, especially for restaurant reservations and managing taxi destinations. Quite a few of the old school taxi drivers were not fluent in English, so having the concierge or their assistant give the cab driver directions worked out very well. In the case of Fuwari Ajichi, the concierge had the taxi driver actually get out of the car and walk us to the correct door for the restaurant - everything was mashed together and completely without house numbers or English!

Here is a sample of the Kanazawa Fish Market.



Here is my wife sampling the Kanazawa Fish Market.



Interior of the James Turrell House of Light.



Sky space (central square) in the House of Light roof with surrounding light display.



Nomura Samurai house in Kanazawa.



Part of the garden at the Nomura Samurai house.



The field below Kanazawa Castle where the black kites steal lunches.



Olafur Eliasson piece at the Contemporary Museum.



Gardeners at Kenroku-en.



As you can tell, I really liked Kanazawa. Great town!

[defspace]

Terrific stuff!

Doug - you got it, we're taking the Hokuriku line. That spice shop is now officially on the to-do list.
Jorn - you might have convinced us to add a night in Kanazawa. New goal: have my lunch stolen by a bird.

[j44ke]

Terrific stuff!

Doug - you got it, we're taking the Hokuriku line. That spice shop is now officially on the to-do list.
Jorn - you might have convinced us to add a night in Kanazawa. New goal: have my lunch stolen by a bird.

Cool - good decision! The black kite looks like this (not my photo.)

[72gmc]

Jorn, I like the "am I enjoying this?" look on your wife's face. A face I probably made many times because I just kept trying stuff.

[vertical_doug]

If you want fun food, then March-May is the season for Hotaru-Ika (Hotaru means firefly)
Toyama Prefecture which is right next to Kanazawa on the Sea of Japan coast is famous for these.
You can get these in Tokyo, but since it is in season, local in Kanazawa will be more fun.
(no I am not making this up.)

[j44ke]

Jorn, I like the "am I enjoying this?" look on your wife's face. A face I probably made many times because I just kept trying stuff.

It was a pretty big oyster, but that face is more of the "I'm going to kill you if you put this on the Internet." Oops.

[Blakey]

I can highly recommend staying overnight at the James Turrell House of Light in Tokamachi

For sure, this is worth doing.

If you have time and a bike, the Tedori Gorge is not that far from Kanazawa and is beautiful, and you can ride the rail trail through it, and from there on route #360 all the way up to Ichirino ski resort (open air onsen!), (stopping part way at the road house with an amazing tofu shop), and then continue further up and to a largely untrafficed road (#53) that winds further up and looks down on the shirakawa-go 'white road'.
Andrew Blake on Instagram: “Rode to a ski village, kept riding, went over a locked gate, kept riding, over another locked gate, road turned to gravel, kept riding.…”

The deserted Hummingbird Cycle Centre theme park is also in the gorge and interesting to poke around.

The town of Matsumoto is also a gem, the permanent Yayoi Kusama exhibit in the museum is a highlight, but there's plenty to do, and it's the access point to get up to kamikochi, which I wanted to do but the weather prevented it.

[j44ke]

Huh, must be something in the water. This just popped up on BikeRumor:

Where to Ride: Exploring "Hidden Japan" by mountain bike in Hakuba & Nozawa-Onsen - Bikerumor

[vertical_doug]

when you are in Tokyo, you should check out this Knife place:
About KAMA-ASA | KAMA-ASA



Here is another place which is not far from Asakusa Station. If you visit Asakusa Temple (you will) you can stop by.

[maunahaole]

Keep in mind that the JR Rail pass and the Shinkansen pass are two different things. There is a way to buy a Shinkansen pass as a foreigner that gives you pretty unlimited travel, BUT you need to reserve your travel in advance at specific offices prior to doing it.

[defspace]

Hey! Thanks for bumping this. You guys were spot on. We had a blast.

We had the JR National pass, it got us on the Shinkansen no problem. We took advantage of both reserved and non-reserved seats. That pass was worth every penny. It's like a cheat code for your transportation.

Jigokudani monkey park was one of the coolest things I've done in my life. If you go, get there early. There were only five or six humans in the part for the first hour. We stayed for a few hours and watched them eat and squabble early in the morning and then transition into grooming and playing an hour or so later. The park appears to be pretty successful at keeping visitors from feeding the monkeys. The monkeys completely ignore the human visitors.

[j44ke]

when you are in Tokyo, you should check out this Knife place:
About KAMA-ASA | KAMA-ASA



Here is another place which is not far from Asakusa Station. If you visit Asakusa Temple (you will) you can stop by.

We visited that knife store. Amazing sushi "katana" knives for cutting apart whole tuna and other fish. Later we saw these very small Japanese women going through a pile of bonito with those knives, and it was like something out of a Kurosawa film. Slash slash and the fish kind of fell open and all the guts came out.

Pretty sure Inujirushi Kaban bike bag shop was a few doors away from that knife shop. It is in the kitchen district because that is where their sewing shop is. They make all their bags a few blocks away from where they sell them. ???????????????28?????????

[taz]

In a previous life I had a chance to visit Matsumoto. Looking for an opportunity to go back.

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Inside the castle.

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[BBB]

My trip to Kanazawa was - almost - a disaster.

Our JR rail passes were due to expire a day or two before we left Japan. My youngest was busting to go on the Kagayaki, even though my eldest was determined to let his younger brother know that it was not as fast as some of the other bullet trains. So, on the last day the rail passes were in operation we were going to have a day trip to Kanazawa; travel on the Kagayaki, see the fish market and visit the park. Some form of karma must have been at work and the eldest was struck down with a cold. My partner stayed back with the eldest and off the two of us we went to Kanazawa.

Something got lost in translation when booking our seats and/or dopey here didn't twig, but no dramas booking a seat on the way out, but first class was full on the way back. We can just rock up and slum it in cattle class on the way back was the rough English from the ticket guy at the station. So, on the way out, the front carriage was deserted and my son was in blue seated Kagayaki heaven as we travelled through the snow in Nagano and went through lots of tunnels. The sold out first class started to nag me and somewhere on the way out out a light bulb went off in my head...the great migration back to Tokyo after new years was about to hit. We got off at Kanazawa and went straight to the ticket booth...no tickets on any trains for the rest of the day. Can I get a regional train back? No. Can I get a region train across to say Nagoya and then on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. Yes to the first, no to the second. A train back to Tokyo was leaving in about 30 minutes and we could line up and try out luck. Great. And the portable wifi battery had died without warning on the way out, meaning I couldn't communicate with my partner in the event we had to emmulate planes, trains and automobiles in getting back to Tokyo.

In a mild panic I dragged my confused youngest back through the station, grabbed something to eat and went straight out to the platform. Thank goodness for politeness of the Japanese and everyone was standing nicely in line. I found the shortest queue and joined. Fortunately we were able to jag two seats, but the train ended up being standing room only and was a much slower trip back. My youngest was oblivious and ended up sitting on the floor instead of his seat for much of the way back.

So, I had all off thirty minutes in Kanazawa and was immensly relieved to not have to (a) catch a bus back to Tokyo (an all day trip), (b) catch a plane (an expensive trip) or (c) stay the night somewhere and travel back the next day.

I certainly want to go back though!

'Blue Bullet train Dad.._.jpg