Overseas Adventure Travel
Japan’s Cultural Treasures
April 17 through May 2, 2023
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Page 1 - Tokyo and Hakone Day 1
Page 2 - Hakone Day 2 and Kanazawa Days 1 & 2
Page 3 - Kanazawa Day 3 and Kyoto Day Day 1
Page 4 - Kyoto Days 2 & 3
Page 5 - Kyoto Days 4 & 5
Kanazawa, Japan – Day 3
This would be our last full day in Kanazawa. OAT had no touring plans in Kanazawa for the day, so we were on our own. They also had an optional tour to the town of Gokayama for $150 pp. Since we had already seen Kanazawa’s main attractions, we had to go to Gokayama. There was nothing else meaningful to do. This tour should have been included in the main itinerary. It just appears to be a way to get additional money out of the guests.
For the first time on the trip, we woke up to rain. It was a light rain, but it would take away from our sightseeing. It was still a pretty hour and fifteen-minute drive to Gokayama, but with wet windows, I couldn’t take photos. Gokayama is known for their gassho style houses. The word gassho in Japanese means “palms of the hands placed together”, as in prayer. The homes have very steep thatched roofs, which is unusual in Japan. Katy showed us a photo in a book showing the neighborhood rethatching a home. Since it does rain and snow a lot in the area, the roof must be replaced quickly before it begins raining. Neighbors help each other, since they know they will need their neighbors help in the future. Below is a photo of that photo. The quality is bad, but I did think it was quite unique.
When we arrived in the village it was still raining, so we had to walk around with umbrellas. The town was still quite pretty with the unique houses and vivid green grass.
Katy recommended that we should climb up a path to get a better view of the village. It was a muddy and slippery trail, but we went up to the first level. It wasn’t that great of a view. Katy said we needed to go up further to get the best view. With the lousy weather, the view couldn’t be that good, so we went back down to explore the village.
The houses were interesting to see, and the setting was so quaint.
One of the houses was a store. We went in to look around and get out of the rain for a few minutes.
One house had been recently partially re-thatched. The light-colored thatch was a giveaway.
Some of the roofs were getting a lot of mildew on them.
I have always been fascinated by thatched roofs. I just love their look. The hollow thatch material must be a great insulator.
After we spent our allotted time in the village, we got back onto the bus. We had a new bus and driver since we had been in Kanazawa. It had even more room in it than the previous one. Everyone could almost have two seats each.
We headed to our next stop on the itinerary to see how to make mochi sticky rice cakes. It wasn’t something that had been high up on my to do list, but it turned out to be a fun experience. We went into a room with tables around an open area with a large wooden bowl and a mallet.
A man came out to tell us how they make mochi. Katy interpreted for him. Mochi uses a different type of rice that can be pounded on until it turns into a paste. He demonstrated how it was done. The woman on the floor would reposition the mochi after each blow of the mallet. She had to be quick.
We all took turns pounding. It was harder to do than it looked. After we finished, the fellow completed the task. The women then took the mochi and rolled it into small balls. Some of them were rolled in a brown mix of sugar, cinnamon and other spices. The rest had a type of syrup dripped on them.
We were able to sample the mochi. My goodness, they were terrible. They didn’t taste very good, and they were so gummy they were hard to eat. I was surprised that some of us were getting seconds on them. Everyone has different tastes, but I know I won’t be adding mochi to my regular diet.
At the end, the gentleman pulled out a Japanese percussion instrument called a binzasara that made a rattling noise. We had a chance to try it. It was kind of fun to play with.
After we were done, we got on the bus and headed for a Japanese paper experience. This would be an interesting activity. After we arrived, the first thing we did was to see a video on how washi paper was made. It comes from the bark of two different types of trees. It was fascinating to watch, and we were looking forward to seeing how we were going to make the paper. We were going to make washi paper cards. They had us each take two colorful plastic designs to put onto the cards.
We then went over to the large tanks with the paper liquid. They demonstrated how to put the framed screens into the fluid edge first and then flatten them out in the liquid and pull them out.
Then we were able to perform the task she had taught us We dunked the frame in the liquid, pulled it out and then let them drain by moving the fluid around. We did the same process three times.
When finished we applied the two designs.
We put the frames to the side and an employee waited for them to dry out a bit before putting them onto the large, heated dryers. It had been a fun experience.
We looked around at the store for a while and then headed for lunch. We went to a local restaurant that had a cozy interior.
While we were finding our seats, Katy pointed down the street where something was going on. It looked like a dragon. I hustled out of the restaurant to check it out. There was a dragon and several kids with long blond hair wigs fighting with it. Unfortunately, because it was raining, the dragon was covered in plastic.
I went back to the restaurant, where Katy found out that it was part of a local spring festival. We were lucky to see this, but the rain took away from the experience. We had a very nice meal with lots of courses.
When we were almost done, we heard the music starting up again down the street. I went down and saw that the dragon was no longer covered in plastic because the rain had stopped.
I was able to get a video of the fight with the dragon. It was a lot of fun.
They then took their drum and moved the whole procession down the street.
When I went back to the restaurant, the staff had passed out binzasaras for us to try to play. I surprisingly did pretty good with it, but it is not that easy to get a smooth sound out of it.
Our last stop in the Gokayama area for the day would be to the Iwase Residence. It is a 300-year-old house and is the largest gasshoe style house in the area. It is also the largest 5-story house with a rafter roof in Japan. It was designated as a national important cultural property in 1958.
As we came into the home we were moved to the large main room where there were two women in unusual outfits.
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The home’s owner told us about the house with Katy translating. I believe he said that he was the 21st generation of the family to own the house. He seemed like a very nice guy. He had a big responsibility to keep the house operating. The cost to replace just one half of the roof was $300,000. Fortunately, he received some assistance from the government. The roof must be replaced every 25 years.
The two women played and danced to some folk music. They also used the binzasaras, which we heard several times that day.
After the music, Katy asked the women some questions. They told us about the folk music of the area that they had just performed.
The owner of the house served us tea. He told us more about his and his family’s life. His mother still lives in part of the house. He opened the sliding doors to the rear of the house revealing a lovely view.
He discussed the different rooms in the house that we could look at before we got up from tea and walked around. He told us about the four floors above us. In the old days, the family provided gun powder to the shogun. In some of the upper floors, they performed some of the processes for making it, but not the final steps. The area was also popular for raising silkworms. They did that on the top floor, where the heat would rise and keep it warmer in the winter. He did warn us that the ceilings in the upper floors were lower, especially the top one, and to be careful if walking up there.
As we walked around the main floor, we had a much greater appreciation of the walls made of washi paper, since we now knew how the material was made.
There was a lovely gold shrine at one end of a room.
Another room was previously the entrance used exclusively for samurais.
There were some beautiful wood carvings between two of the rooms.
When our tour of the interior was completed, we walked around outside looking at the different sides of the large house and the grounds.
Some of his family lived in the other house next to the main one.
We thanked the owner for sharing the home and stories with us before boarding the bus for the ride back to Kanazawa. That night we were again on our own for dinner, so we went to the food court where Katy had taken the group to the previous night. There were lots of good restaurants there and we found a winner, Nangokosyuka. It wasn’t busy and we had a wonderful meal.
Even though it had been a rainy day, we were so lucky that it happened that day rather than the previous one when we visited the garden. Most of our activities were inside and the rain was light for our morning walk around the gasshoe houses. We talked to some people from another OAT group that were a day behind us on their itinerary, who had to see the garden holding umbrellas. The rain had also been harder in Kyoto that day. We had lucked out.
Transfer to Kyoto, Japan – Day 1
It was going to be another travel day, but we were first going to have a home visit with a local family. We were broken down into four groups, so that no one family would be overwhelmed with too many guests. Katy had ordered taxis. The families knew when to order taxis to have us back to the hotel in time for lunch and our upcoming train ride to Kyoto. We had a group of five. Barbara and Goldie joined the three of us. We had the largest group and had to have two taxis. When we arrived at the nice home, the owner, Mr. Nakagawa, was waiting for us. He spoke very good English and welcomed us to our home. Katy had told us that he owned a sake shop. That sounded like the visit might have fringe benefits for us.
As we entered his home, the first thing that drew my attention was a cute cat. We were surprised that strangers didn’t seem to bother him at all. He would follow us around and observe us.
After introducing us to his wife, Mr. Nakagawa began his house tour. It was a very nice home with lots of beautiful decorations and accessories. He was an art collector, so he pointed out items and told us all about them. It was fascinating and most interesting to hear about.
On the wall of one room were two beautiful kimonos.
He told us about them and then his wife joined us to dress the girls up in some other ones. As each one tried on a kimono, his wife would meticulously arrange the kimonos to make them perfect for the photos we would take. Barbara wanted one with Cathy. They all loved the experience and looked great.
We then went up to the second floor. It had a great view looking down to the main floor.
He then opened the door to a small room. On the inside of the door was a Marilyn Monroe poster. He was a big fan of hers.
Also in the room was a record player. He turned on one of the albums, and we recognized the songs immediately. He enjoyed American musicians, particularly the Ventures. They would tour Japan every year and he would go to some of their shows. He showed us his albums that were mostly American groups.
During our discussions, he told us about other businesses that he and his family had been involved in. His father had been a builder and had done a lot of work modifying the house for Mr. Nakagawa’s family. He took us up the stairs to the roof to show us the view from there. When he first moved to the house, there weren’t many buildings or homes around him. That had changed. We also were able to look down at the canal that was just below the house. The sound of running water was most pleasant. He also pointed out the copper roof. That was a very nice feature of the house that we hadn’t seen close up before.
We returned to the main floor, where Mr. Nakagawa’s wife showed off her kitchen. She had storage under the floor as well as many pull out cabinets and appliances. She was very proud of her kitchen.
We then returned to the first room we saw when we came into the house, where we were going to have tea. When we saw how low the table was, we were concerned about sitting lotus style, but he pointed out by lifting the blanket around the table that there was a well under the table for our legs. We were thrilled.
We were served tea and a delicious, filled pastry.
We continued our discussion. He then pulled out some paper with writing on it. He looked at our name tags to make sure he had our names correctly and proceeded to take out a calligraphy pen and customize the document he had prepared with our names. He had also been a calligrapher. When finished, he put an ink stamp on each document. He went on about what the document said. It was a very sweet statement about how special it was for our paths to cross that day. We were touched by his sincerity and the emotion of the moment.
He also gave each of us a set of nice chopsticks that we will cherish. It was getting close to the time that we needed head back to the hotel. I took a photo of the two of them before leaving the house.
He took us outside, but we didn’t see any cabs. He told us to follow him. We went into his sake shop that was very near the house. We could see the taxis waiting outside the store with the drivers anxiously standing outside them. He kept motioning them to wait a bit more as he told us about the store. He asked if we would like a sample. Of course we did. He showed us the bottle we would sample.
It was the sake brand made by his family who were also in the sake production business. We had been enjoying sake during our visit and found his brand to be very good. After finishing the sample, we had to leave. We said our goodbyes and thanked Mr. Nakagawa extensively for the most enjoyable visit they had provided for us. It had been very special for all of us. Home visits are a wonderful feature of OAT trips that we enjoy so much.
When we got back to the hotel, everyone was raving about how wonderful their specific home visit was. All of the groups had totally different unique experiences. We left the hotel for our trip to the train station with our small two-night bags. We were looking forward to seeing our large suitcases we hadn’t seen since Tokyo, at our hotel in Kyoto. We continued to talk about the visits through lunch, which was at a restaurant that was inside a mall next to the Kanazawa train station.
We thouroughly enjoyed our visit to the town of Kanazawa. With it having a population of 469,000, it was a much more pleasant pace than Tokyo with its 32,000,000 residents. It also had all the benefits of a larger city. We discussed that if we ever lived in Japan, Kanazawa would be where we would choose to live.
As we left the mall and entered the railway station, we were surprised by the amazing steel and glass structure. It is called the motenashi dome. It protects travelers from the frequent rain received there. We totally missed seeing it when we arrived three days earlier.
While we were waiting to go to the platform to catch our limited express train that would take 2 hours and fifteen minutes to get to Kyoto, Katy showed us around the station. She wanted to show us the Tsuzumi (drum) Gate. It was in the shape of an old form of Japanese drum. Very impressive! This was quite a train station.
Our train was once again very comfortable with plenty of leg room and large windows for watching the beautiful landscape. It was amazing how many flooded rice fields we passed by.
When we arrived at the Kyoto train station, we were surprised at how large it was and how there were so many stores and restaurants inside it. As we left the underground section, we were once again under a large steel and glass dome.
Our hotel, the Kyoto Granvia, was actually a part of the train station. How convenient was that?
The lobby area was quite attractive.
It was different seeing the hotel’s support team wearing pill box hats. I hadn’t seen those in many decades. I took a photo of a lady in the elevator that showed her costume.
Our room, although smaller than the one in Kanazawa. It was very comfortable and well equipped.
The bathroom was equipped just like all the others, but with less countertop space.
Katy gave us an orientation walk of the area before we went downstairs in the train station to take a subway to our restaurant for what was again called a welcome dinner. I guess it was a welcome to the beautiful city of Kyoto. Across the street from the hotel was the 430-foot-tall Kyoto Tower. It was on top of the Kyoto Tower Hotel, which had lots of shops and restaurants in it also. I got a better pic of the tower as we were walking around.
When we got to the area where the restaurant was, it was a much quieter area with nice scenery.
The restaurant was small, and we took up most of it.
They served us a bento box with a delicious meal inside. A small cheesecake followed.
It was a most enjoyable and fun dinner. Katy gave us the option of taking the subway back to the hotel or a taxi. When we tookn the subway to the restaurant, there was a lot of walking in the train stations to get to where we needed to be, so everyone chose to go by taxi.
When we got back to the hotel the tower was illuminated. A pretty sight.
Earlier in the evening, Michael and Norma told us they had seen a light show in the complex when they were exploring the hotel area. They told us to keep going up the escalators until we got to the eighth floor. They also said that there was a nice view of the city and other things to do on eleven. It sounded like a good idea to see the light show, so we went to the escalators. We weren’t the only ones interested in it. It was a crowded string of escalators. There were lots of folks watching the light show. It was a fun thing to do.
When we had seen enough, we kept moving up more elevators until we got to the top. The view of the city was nice, but reflection on the glass walls around the outside wall prevented decent photos. What was more enjoyable was to look down into where we had come from on the main floor of the hotel/train station.
There were so many stores and restaurants available to go to from the upper levels. There were floating walkways between the different buildings. Lorie, Linda, Chuck and I wanted to check them out. Cathy and Claudia had seen enough and went back to their rooms after the busy travel day.
At the end of the second hallway, we came to some escalators that took us down to a courtyard we hadn’t seen before.
We didn’t have the slightest idea where we were in the complex. We looked around and finally went into a door where there was an elevator. We were able to go to a floor that gave us a path to the main terminal area. We had enough adventure for the night and were ready for the next day to explore Kyoto.
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