kanazawa

Japan – 27th October 2025

Travel

Accidentally turned my alarm off and we didn’t wake up till 7:20, oops! Must have needed the rest, but we’re worried that there will be a huge queue for breakfast, they were very specific about it when we checked in.

Short wait and, wow, the most extensive buffet we’ve been presented with yet, might even top the Grand Josun hotel in Busan! The cake station gives me sugar shakes just looking at it.

“This trip is essentially a food tour, isn’t it?” I look over the table at Trix, “yes of course, what else would it be?”

Sounds like a good reason to try everything then!

Epic breakfast, need to sit down for a while before venturing out for a run (and to wait for the rain to ease off a bit, half hoping it doesn’t and I can legitimately get back into bed and read, which is precisely what Trix has planned for this morning).

After much procrastination, and a break in the weather, I find the route along a river that’ll take me all the way to the beach. No roads to cross, hardly any people, sun warming my back, I settle into a nice pace and think about everything and nothing.

Standing on the beach looking out over the Japan sea I realise that the next stop is North Korea, 520 miles away. It sounds far until you remember that they have nuclear weapons and that’s about the same distance as London to Zermatt.

Heading back I notice a swirl of shadows above me, yesterday we saw a sign saying “beware of the kites”, hopefully I don’t look hopeless enough for these birds of prey to keep such a close eye on me.

Back at the hotel Trix assures me that she’s done some sketching and washed her hair, and absolutely has not been dozing in bed the whole time. I believe her, we’re both ready for some lunch, but I could so easily curl up for a little snooze too.

Handily the main fish market is about 3 minutes walk away, we do a circuit with a couple of stops for fried chicken and beer, seafood dumplings, and a pork bao bun.

Neither of are in the mood for fish intestines or sea urchin, so we select some salmon and tuna maki rolls and a spider crab (and a beer), then find a spot to stand at a plywood board lined with people eating all sorts of things.

I read that Kanazawa has the best sushi in Japan, and eating raw fish in the local fish market is a pretty special experience.

We can hear the rain easing off and slowly walk through the active geisha district to the gold leaf museum, it’s not all about food after all.

We learn that it’s made from an alloy of gold, silver and copper, and is beaten to 1/1000 of a millimetre. Also it’s edible because it doesn’t break down in your body, chemically stable to be precise. So maybe it is really all about food.

It’s tea and cake time, but we settle for ice cream and matcha jelly, decorated with gold leaf.

As we wander off in search of a bar to sit and relax for a bit (this girl has been trained well), Trix looks sideways at me, “hold on, if gold doesn’t break down in your body, then that means you have sparkly poo?”, laughing I say “yeah, I figured I wouldn’t tell you that as we were eating it!”

The bar is perfect for a bit of a break, big enough that we can sit and read our books without feeling awkward, the fact they have their own brewery and serve up sample trays is obviously a happy bonus for one of us.

We could so easily have gone back to the hotel for a snooze, but! It’s only 4:40pm, so we find the (preserved) Samurai district, which is really quite atmospheric as the sun goes down, the streets empty out, and we’re transported hundreds of years back in time (or to an episode of Demon Slayer, depending on your perspective!)

It is absolutely time for supper now, so we find the nearest ramen place.  After a brief scuffle with the push button, 1000 yen notes only, ordering machine, we finally present our tickets to the man behind the counter and settle down to wait for delicious things to be cooked.

We’ve been walking everywhere here as it’s really quite a small city, but half a mile from the hotel it starts raining again and we realise we left our umbrellas behind. Nothing for it but to duck into the nearest 7-Eleven for some bedtime treats and wait for the rain to stop.

Happy to be back in the room before 7pm, some quiet time before a day of travelling tomorrow.

Japan – 26th October 2025

Travel
Steps: 13,372
Train journeys: 3
Hours on trains: 4
Hours walking in the rain: 1

Ended up being a bit of a late night, so both a bit sluggish this morning, no running today. Trix is sad to leave her window.

I had a full English breakfast, Japanese style, because … why not, it’s a holiday! Roast beef, sausages, very wet scrambled eggs, cloud bread and fatty bacon.

We had 3 trains to get today, and had a little pile of tickets each, mostly understandable, but it wasn’t totally clear how to navigate the turnstiles. I asked the station chap he said “stack them, all together, ok!”, ok… let’s see, we were both pretty sceptical. Turns out the machine separates them, processes each one individually, and stamps, marks, or keeps them depending on where you are and how far through the journey you’ve come. Impressed, we set off to find provisions.

First leg of the journey was a bullet train to Kyoto, we settled in and I asked Trix what the best thing about Hiroshima was, “Shin! He was great!”. He was. In the context of a thing or place, “shin” means new (like Shinkansen – new trail line), for a name it can be made of up different kanji characters, I can’t remember which ones he said his was, but some of these and they all fit: humility, heart, belief, true. He was given the name by his parents and grandparents because of how they felt after the bomb, at first he felt he had a heavy responsibility, but he grew into it, and is one of the most positive people I’ve met.

The train alternates between tunnel and daylight, it’s relaxing and mesmerising. The tunnels are quiet and dark, then popping into daylight, smoothly gliding through a valley, over villages, temples, rivers, pointy tree covered hills on all sides, then plunging back through the next mountain. If I hadn’t had 3 coffees I’d be dozing in my comfortable reclining seat.

We look at the map of Kanazawa, our destination for today, there are beaches, and we wonder whether to just take a walk along one of them for a change of scene. We looked at each other simultaneously, “a beach walk without puppies?”

It does seem wrong, “we’re definitely not obsessing about our dog” Trix laughs.

We change at Kyoto for the Thunderbird Express 21, I’m excited, “do you you think it’ll be as cool as it sounds?”, she just raises an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure you’re going to be disappointed, it’s just a standard JR train”.

I thought it had a certain something, sort of like an insect, Trix said “it looks pretty goofy”, which I thought was a bit mean.

Time for lunch, and it’s only as I’m opening my yakitori bento box that I realise this is unlikely to be the sort of yakitori I would usually order… hmmmm. Just as well I like chicken skin, and …. cartilage. There are some other bits that I don’t recognise, but “ah well at least it’s just chicken eh?”. Luckily I’ve got a beer, and everything goes well with beer.

I don’t know why we even thought about a beach, it’s a grey drizzly sort of a day. The clouds seem to have got tangled up in the hills, very green alongside the edge of a huge lake. Puffy green bamboo forests, wooden houses, rice fields.

Trundling along gently, making each other laugh by being silly, the packet of “finger wiper” that came with my lunch has Trix in stitches. Feels like the camper van trip: we’ve gone slightly deranged, in a good way.

It’s only lightly raining as we walk to the hotel, but by the time we leave it’s properly pouring. We do a lap of the castle, narrowly miss a giant hornet being chased by a worried looking groundskeeper with a big net on a stick. Trix is apprehensive about heading further into the forest, “I’m sure he caught it, I saw him stamping on something just now”, though it almost certainly went a different way (I keep that to myself).


Wandering around the Katamachi area looking for food, but it’s weirdly quiet then we realise it’s Sunday evening, oops. Trix spots a place down a side street, “oh that place, nice looking things on skewers?” Yes. We sit at the counter, just the job.

Wasn’t quite enough though, and we spot a barbecue place on the way back to the hotel, “cheeky grilled beef and rice?”, obviously.

As per our standard routine, we find a 7-Eleven and meander back to the room, time for hotel pyjamas and a bit of a chill before an early night, all that sitting around is weirdly tiring.

Double chin coming along nicely!