Kanazawa #2
Monday afternoon, Natalie and I saw The Avengers (Marvel comics superheroes) in the cinema in the Forus shopping centre - in English with Japanese subtitles.
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Tuesday, Natalie and I took the Kanazawa Loop Bus and stopped first at the Tea District. We wandered around some of the streets - having softserves (blueberry for Natalie, vanilla for me) sprinkled with gold leave. We found ourselves at a the Tokuda Shusei Kinenkan Museum on the life and works of a naturalist author who spent his childhood on Kanazawa. On entry, we bought a day pass for several cultural museums. After that museum, we went back past the bus stop to find the most famous street in the Tea District. Natalie had a lollipop with gold in it. We had a very modern lunch - toasted sandwiches - on the most famous street of old architecture. I bought myself some hand lotion containing gold flakes (like the lotion Natalie bought me when she was a student in Kanazawa).
Then we found the Kanazawa Yasue Gold Leaf Museum which was interesting altho not a place where one can practise with gold leaf oneself. Then we walked back down the street and found the Kanazawa Phonograph Museum. The museum had some interesting displays but the really super thing was that at 4pm they had a demonstration when they played several of the phonographs for us, including one using an Edison cylinder and one using Edison's "vertical motion" disc.
Having had enough museums for one day (all three had been on the pass we bought), and feeling that the weather had cooled down slightly, we took the Loop Bus to Kenroku-en Garden. Decided it was not worth paying to go in as it closed at 6pm. Walked across the bridge to the Kanazawa Castle Park. A little granny in the group ahead of us waved us in - the grounds were free entry so we walked around, looking at the buildings (admiring the dry stonework) and grounds until closing time (6pm).
Then we caught the Loop Bus back to the railway station.
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Wednesday, we caught the Loop Bus to a stop at the edge of the Kenroku-en Garden and found the Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts (not as easy as it might have been has it kept disappearing from sign posts). That was a very interesting museum. There was a class on making Japanese candles which we looked at several times as we passed.
Then we went to the Honda Zohinkan Museum (Honda being one of the eight samurai clans for this area). That was interesting and included the kit for a samurai horse (cloth shoes and all).
Then we went to the Ishikawa-ken History Museum (which had a special exhibition of mandala). The History Museum was housed in three building of what had been Army armories.
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Thursday, we had a day trip out to the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. First, we took a JR train to Fukui. At the private train station to the town with the museum, the teller sold us tickets which included entry to the museum as well as the train and bus trips to and from the museum. When we arrived at the museum (oddly, the bus did not connect well with the train) we discovered that the tickets included the special exhibition. The Dinosaur Museum is Very Good and it was nice to have a trip out into a rural area.
When we arrived back at the train station (another longish wait for the bus because it suddenly stopped going at 2 minutes past the hour and moved to 35 minutes past the hour just when we were ready to catch it) we were met by official who announced that there had been an accident on the line and they did not know when a train would be able to arrive to take us to Fukui. Luckily, we had to wait only 40 minutes.
Then train back from Fukui to Kanazawa.
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Friday is a "rest day". Went to the post office and the chemist and I looked at some umbrellas again. Then had orange juice at the cafe in the school of music next to the hotel.
Natalie has gone to the cinema to see an unsubtitled Japanese movie.
