Nagoya to Kanazawa on 2 different trains
Now I am in Kanazawa, where I have been once before. My hotel will take a bit of explaining but we will get to that.
Getting here was 2 different trains, first the limited express Shirasagi from Nagoya to Tsuruga, and then the new Shinkanesen on the newest extension from Tsuruga to Kanazawa.
As you shall see, on the Shinkansen I had the entire carriage to myself, so the line beyond Kanazawa is not very popular. Eventually this will join up with Kyoto and replace the limited express Thunderbird service, which I took last time I was in Kanazawa.
Anyway, the journey was not too long and really not eventful in any way, Tsuruga station has no shops even though it is a transfer hub at the moment, I guess they know those days are numbered as soon as the line is extended further towards Kyoto. Now for the worst pics of this trip, but I predict people will be fascinated by the hotel room layout for some strange reason.
One last photo in Nagoya, the spiral building.
This is the Shirasagi limited express train. It looks a lot like the N'EX train that goes from Narita airport. It does not go very fast, but the line is probably not up to it anyway. I have ridden on the line it goes on before between Gifu and Mount Ibuki, which is still closed due to a landslide. I tried to climb it again last year but could not due to the same landslide.
Inside the limited express, which was busier than the Shinkansen, but I still got an empty seat next to me.
Here is the view from Tsuruga station. I had about 30 minutes between trains and intended to go and walk around outside the station, so I exited on one side where there was very little to see, and there was no way to get back to the other side without reentering the station, which required me to validate my ticket for the next leg of my journey, thus meaning I was now trapped in the station.
Here is my bullet train to Kanazawa. Painted in the blue and gold colours like many of them are.
As mentioned above, I got a whole carriage to myself. That is my bag on the rack. Is this a brand new train? It looks old fashioned on the inside.
After arriving in Kanazawa I went to a nearby Anderson bakery for lunch, and made the guy behind me in the line furious because I got the last available table. I am fairly certain he was saying unkind things about me to the cashier.
And now for my hotel. The bed is huge, the room is quite large, why is there a fold up desk there? And what is that sink doing there? There is no actual desk to sit at, weird. This is not the same as the picture on the booking site, I always check for a work desk. So now I am sitting on the end of the bed using the fold up desk, but now for the sink mystery....
The toilet is standalone, and the sink is in the bed/lounge area.
And then the shower / full size bath is its own room. The shower has nozzles going in every direction, but floods the entire room, and also comes with some sort of chair like they tortured Daniel Crags testicles with in one of the bond movies. I am kind of frightened to take a shower.
Oh, and the hotel name is Hotel Forza. About $100 AUD per night.
Kanazawa Katamachi district
Kanazawa is a city of 3 halves. The station, the market area where I am staying, and Katamachi by the old bridge. There is no train or tram between them, but it is not too far to walk, maybe a kilometre between each. There are a few new big modern stores in the main Katamachi area from when I was last here. Also there are tourists. Thousands of western tourists.
I saw basically no tourists in Nagoya but they come here in droves and a lot of them are German, especially in my hotel. They all wear the same big red jacket like they are here to rescue people buried in an avalanche. Some of them are old, old enough that I wonder if they are in Japan trying to get the old band back together for a third try. Am I cancelled yet?
Tomorrow is a hiking day, I have had to change my plan to go to a smaller hike tomorrow because the main one had a bear and cub sighting last weekend at the start of the trail! I will probably do that hike on Sunday when there will be more people around to scare the bears away.
My hiking schedule is not ideal because it means I will have to go to the garden that all the tourists come here for on Saturday, the busiest day. So you have Germans invading a Japanese garden to look forward to the day after tomorrow.
Before wandering the streets of Katamachi I decided to explore a shrine up a hill in the dark. It was pretty good too. Also it was cold, I probably should have had my jacket on, only 9 degrees celsius. I wish the world would settle on one measure of temperature so I don't have to be confused about celsius / centigrade and then type it so that people do not think I mean failheit.
Here is the actual shrine, Oyama shrine to be precise.
Behind the shrine is a nice bridge across to the castle ruins park. I will probably go there on Saturday.
Exiting the shrine area and it was time for one last shot of darkness.
From the darkness to light pollution.
The main area of Katamachi is much as I remembered it.
However here are a few new stores, I think they were building sites last time.
The bridge was celebrating it's 100th birthday.
I remembered the back alleyways, there are some more alleyway-ish than this, further exploration required.
I headed into big boss guitar store, which is normally not something I bother to photograph, but those 2 black headless guitars are Schecters, and I never saw a headless Schecter before, so now I need to investigate. Also the headless white strandberg on the ground front centre at accidental kicking height is about $4280, so don't kick it.
And for dinner, the unhealthiest dinner of all! Katsu curry. It came from a funky diner that gets a great score on google maps, and it was really nice, but deep fried chicken on top of curry on top of rice is probably 3 days of calories!
Hopefully no bears tomorrow.