Kanazawa, Day One

Kanazawa, located on the Sea of Japan, is a castle town, the second-largest city (after Kyoto) to escape bombing in World War II. It is the prefectural capital of Ishikawa. These distinctive walls mark the Naga-machi district, where samurai had their homes.

This is inside a mid-level samurai's house--levels of prestige were measured by how many tatami mats a house held...

This lovely little garden was at the Nomura House, the home of a high-level samurai and his family. This garden has a 400-year-old bayberry tree in it. The craftsmanship was impeccable: below is a decorative ornament used to cover a nail. There were many different styles of these ornaments.

I love the tile ornaments used at the edges of roofs or on the ridge lines...

This is Kanazawa Castle, built for a shogun of the ruling Maeda clan in 1583. What you're seeing is mostly a reconstruction (fires took their toll over the years), but it's impressive nonetheless...

We ended our day's tour at Kenrokuen, a fabulous "stroll garden." Considered to be one of the top three gardens in Japan, Kenrokuen means "having six attributes," characteristics thought to create a perfect garden. These are: spaciousness, tranquility, artifice (interesting!), water, antiquity, and views. Many trees have been trained over many years with poles, as seen above.

Finally, a Shinto shrine...

We actually ended this day with an elaborate shabu-shabu meal, a real treat provided by our always gracious hosts. That will be covered in a later post about food consumed while in Japan...