We took off towards a car rental place on Saturday around noon. Not that it necessarily was impossible to go there by train and bus, but as it would be much easier if we had a car, we decided to rent a car for the entire trip this time. The car rental place was in Ikebukuro, and the rental car was a Toyota Aqua – a hybrid car. It seems that the Toyota models in Japan differs from the ones in Europe and the Aqua is similar to the Prius, I think.

We stopped on the way and had some lunch at a service station which was surrounded by mountains (not uncommon in Japan, but not to be found in Denmark ^^).

We did not have any particular sightseeing planned until Sunday, so we just stopped by a supermarket to buy a few beers and some food for barbequing. I had noticed before that barbequing in Japan is a bit different from in Denmark, but I had never tried this type of grill before. It was small and highly insulated so it could stand on top of a picnic blanket. After heating up the coal initially, they were set aflame by blowing with a fan into a small hole near the bottom of the grill.

We had bought different types of sliced meat, sausages, cheese, and asparagus to put on the grill. Since it could stand right next to you, you could eat everything straight off from the grill and I think it’s quite a nice concept if you are not too many people.

Unlike the first day which was mainly spent driving and just relaxing, the second day was spent sightseeing in Nikko. It took some time to go there by car, however following the fastest google maps route we got to drive on some beautiful forest roads.

It took us some time to find a parking space and maybe we ended up parking at the most expensive place in all of Nikko (nothing compared to Copenhagen though. I think it was around 500 yen (25kr) in total ^^).  As I have mentioned before, most places in Japan are known for some kind of food, and in most cases it is Soba. That was also the case here, however this type of soba had some kind of tofu thingies on top of the noodles (I can’t remember their name now). As regular tofu, they really had no taste, but it was not bad.

In Nikko we went to a few famous sightseeing spots such as a red bridge which you had to pay money to pass (seemed like a waste as the exit was blocked).

A pretty temple…

…with some famous three monkeys…

… a famous sleeping cat (I didn’t catch why this was famous)…

… and around 200 steps to the top (I think it was). Many of the children were counting while climbing the stairs (most of them seemed to have made a mistake on the way though ^^).

The final stop was a waterfall near the top of the mountain. To get there, we had to drive the curly mountain road for around half an hour I think. To be able to get to the observation deck of the waterfall, you need to ride an elevator down and this closes at 5pm. We barely made it in time – I think we were there around 4:30, however thanks to that it was not so crowded. You can also view the water fall from the top…

However, it was quite different to see it from the observation deck. It was very beautiful, but at the same time gave a sense of how powerful and scary nature can be. Very fascinating.

After watching the waterfall we headed back towards Tokyo. There turned out to have been a traffic accident and we used google maps to find the fastest route. It ended up leading us on a huge detour (although it might have been faster than getting stuck in traffic jam), and it took around double of the expected time to get back. Somehow I always seem to get stuck in traffic jams when traveling around by car in Japan ^^. We arrived at the car rental place in Ikebukuro around 9 or 10pm (which by the way is not a recommended place to drive car in the evening! I’m glad I wasn’t the one driving), and being exhausted we decided to get late dinner and some beers at an Izakaya before going home.

That was the story about visiting the Tochigi prefecture along with Nikko! The next will be about the final weekend trip on my previous trip to Japan which went to Kamakura!

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After that we went to see the castle which had been newly renovated and it was showing off it’s white color.

And there was a gate with an interesting design.

The inside of the castle was completely renovated, but it was possible with some imagination to imagine how it was used many many years ago. I didn’t know that they had electic outlets in the walls, internet routers and flat screen TVs back then, though. (hehe) ^^
After looking at the castle and small park around it, we went to see the famous Kenrokuen Garden, which was an extremely beautiful place. I think this place will be pretty in different ways at all times of the year.

There was also the first fountain in Japan from 1861 working on natural pressure by difference in the water level.

and a small sunbathing lizzard!! ^^

After walking for quite some time in this park (I highly recommend this place), we went to the Higashi Chaya District.

Since we walked a lot and had skipped lunch due to the late breakfast, the first stop was a café. Most cafés in this district sell Japanese sweets/cakes, and they can be a bit special to foreigners (including me). It usually looks really good but foreigners usually get surprised about what it actually is when eating it. The below is vanilla and maccha icecream (maccha is like thick green tea), mochi (made by pounding boiled rice with a sort of a hammer into a substance a bit similar to chewing gum), and sweet soy beans.

It was difficult for me to eat these things when I just came to Japan, but I don’t hate it now. However, this time I went with a cheese cake instead. ^^
There were many interesting stores selling souvenirs in this district. There were also many stores selling food or beauty products containing gold (gold is an industry in Kanazawa), which was interesting to see but I did not buy anything. One particularly interesting thing was that it was possible to enter a “Chaya” which, despite it’s name that means something like “tea house”, was a place where Geisha entertained the guests e.g. with song and dance.

After browsing several stores in this district we still had a little bit of time until the departure time of the train back to Tokyo, so we thought it was a great idea to buy beers and some snacks in a convenience store and drink it by the river.

We found out that the idea sounded better than it was since it was a bit smelly close to the river, and there were quite a lot of bugs. ^^ But you only noticed the smell in the beginning and it was actually okay despite the bugs. After that we returned to the station where we had a bit time to browse the souvenir shops and then we headed back to Tokyo!
Phew, that was a lot of writing and I still need to write about my trip last weekend! But that will have to wait a little bit. See you!!

The post Weekend trip to Kanazawa! (Day 2) appeared first on Kristines Blog.

… and an interesting fountain clock which both could tell time..

… and say welcome to the people arriving to Kanazawa (ようこそ金沢へ).

To get around you can take the bus, however there is a quite nice bike renting system which we chose to use since the weather was good. If done correctly, you can use the bikes all day for only 200 yen (around 10dkk). You need a credit card and a pasmo/suica or similar, and the maximum time you can keep a bike without visiting a bike stand is 30 minutes, but it’s really useful. Around Kanazawa there are something like 20 points where you can put/pick up bikes, and they are cleverly located close to popular sightseeing spots. It should be noted, though, that the max height of the saddle was quite low and definitely not made for tall people, but as it is not long distances it was fine.

The first stop was a large food market mainly selling fish, fruits and vegetables. It was interesting to see all the different types of fish they sell, and I was surprised by shrimps suddenly jumping in their tray.

And of course there were also squid which along with octopus is my ultimate enemy of foods in Japan. ^^

And large bamboo shots…

And fresh wasabi (わさび)!!

Inside the market you can eat things like oiysters, shrimps and sea urchin directly at the food stands, or you can have sushi in one of the restaurants. As almost always in Japan, you need to stand in like to wait for these restaurants, and sometimes the queue is long (below is people sitting and waiting to get inside a sushi restaurant)..

.. but the place we went to had a waiting time of 20 minutes, so that was not too bad. And the sushi was really good.

Second stop was an art museum which was… very special I’d say. Most of the art in there was a bit creepy I think. But there was a pool with a room underneath where you could go and take some interesting pictures from the top.. Art has many forms…

Also outside of the art museum there were some slightly weird pieces of art, and particularly some “leg statue” was weird.

After a short break in a café we moved on to taking a walk in a part of the city with old fasioned “samurai style” buildings.

Having walked and biked quite a lot around we went to the ryokan/guest house and it was really nice and cosy place despite being cheap.

One reason for it being cheap was probably that there was only one toilet to around 5-6 rooms, but it didn’t give any problems. After having a bath we went to look for somewhere to eat dinner, and ended up in a Yakitori restaurant which was nice and cheap.

Just before leaving the restaurant we fell into talk with the owner and some of the other costumers (in Japanese), and it is always interesting when these kind of things happens.
That was the end of the first day in Kanazawa, and the next day also included a lot of interesting sightseeing before going back to Tokyo. But since this post already got quite long, that will be up next.

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In China Town you buy plenty of food you can take with you and particularly various types of “xiaolongbao” (小籠包, shouronpou, in Japanese) and “manjuu” (饅頭). First up was a “Niku Manjuu” (steamed bread with meat inside) and fried xiaolongbao.

You need to be careful when eating these since there’s a thin sauce inside which is very hot. However it is very tasty!
Particularly because it was golden week, there were a lot of people so it was necessary to line up for a little while when buying something.

However, this is not uncommon in Japan and I realised how used to this I had gotten when I thought that it was not particularly long to wait for 30 minutes in line. ^^
Probably since it was China Town, there were sooo many souvenirs with pandas. There was even a shop where you entered through a panda’s mouth.

and even these things you put up when there’s construction work were panda themed (I’ve seen these with many different themes by now, also Hello Kitty). ^^

There was also some sort of temple.. i think.. ^^

… and after walking around for quite some time, we bought some more xiaolongbao and some well deserved Tsingtao beer to go with it.
From China Town, we walked to a park neer the harbor and even though there also was a lot of people here, it did not feel crowded. It was a very peaceful and nice place to take a walk and take a rest.

And there was a special flower arrangement which I’m still not sure whether I found cute or scary…

A bit after the park there was also a german festival going on where they were playing live german music and selling german beer.

And the old building in the above photo was actually a shopping center where they also had a nice café selling waffles with fruits on top (it was very tasty).

Walking a bit further there was another park and a small ship museum free to enter.

There was also a theme park with a few rides such as roller coasters and a large paris wheel.

I can really recommend the riding the paris wheel since there’s a very nice view from there.

In the evening the whole city lights up which is definitely a view worth staying until after sunset for.

Particularly the paris wheel has some pretty and interesting light shows that look like fireworks and such… at some point it even showed some sort of ping pong. ^^

I think I can say that I enjoyed a day in Yokohama to the fullest, but I was quite exhausted when I got home. ^^

In the weekend I went to Kanazawa, so next time will probably be about that! Over and out.

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