After getting a good night’s sleep at the minshuku, we were up and ready by 7:30am. Same with the previous night, all the guests ate breakfast together. Breakfast was a mix of eastern and western dishes. It was the first time I was served scrambled eggs and English tea while staying at a traditional inn. One of the nice ladies who served us even offered to take a photo for the three of us while we were having breakfast. (Probably because I told her how much I really like the iwana from the previous night, haha.)

We took the bus across from the visitor’s centre at 8:50am and arrived in Kanazawa just after 10:00am. My first observation of Kanazawa – it was raining. While it wasn’t a huge downpour, it did end up raining steadily for the entire day. For those of you who haven’t experienced travelling an entire day in the rain, the general equation goes kind of like this: rain + vacation = being miserable for the rest of the day. Needless to say it wasn’t a very pleasant experience.

Despite the rain, we still managed to carry on with our plans. We dropped off our bags at Toyoko Inn and luckily picked up some umbrellas that were free to borrow from the hotel. Then we walked back to the station to buy our bus passes for the day. The day pass was great since it allowed us to hop on and off all the sightseeing buses (as well as the local buses which I found out later).

Our first stop that day was at Oyama Jinja. While I’ve been to my share of shrines in Japan, the one reason this one caught my eye was because of the European looking gates leading into the shrine. I had to work it into our itinerary just so I could see it in person.

Later on we hopped back on the bus and stopped at Kenroukuen. We were somewhat perplexed getting off cause we didn’t exactly know how to get to the entrance of the park. Both the park and the neighbouring castle were elevated with these steep walls on both sides. Somehow we managed to follow this pathway which led up to the main restaurant street just outside of the garden. It had been raining all morning already, so we decided grab lunch first so we could dry up inside.

We ended up eating at a restaurant called 堤亭. The teishoku sets we ordered weren’t anything special, but I did try their 治部料理, which is a specialty in the area. I was just a little surprised that my dish was served cold, cause I was expecting it to be warm.

After we ate we walked back out in the rain to start the tour of the park. Kenroukuen has been called one of the three most beautiful landscape gardens in Japan. I think that statement would hold true if it was a clear, sunny day. While I did enjoy seeing the garden, it really wasn’t the same in the rain. All my photos were either foggy or were covered in raindrops. (T__T)

Later on we took the bus towards the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. I had seen a fair share of television shows which used the museum as a backdrop, so I was really excited to see it in person.The space isn’t very big, but the circular layout of the museum was really unique. The two special exhibits inside the museum require admission tickets, but the rest of the museum is free to the public. We only paid to see one, which was the Architecture since 3.11 exhibit. (Side note I would love to see the Architecture for Dogs exhibit which is opening later this year.)

The main reason why we chose that exhibit over the other one was so we could see Leandro Erlich’s the Swimming Pool. There are two views to the swimming pool – one is from the bottom of the pool, while the other one is from the top looking down into the pool. Since it was raining, the entrance to the top of the pool was closed off, so it was a unfortunate I couldn’t get the full experience. Otherwise I was pretty happy to be able to see the pool in person.

The gallery wasn’t very big so we were able to finish our tour in about an hour. We browsed through the gift shop before we left. Then it was off to our last stop of the day – Higashi Chaya district.

I was really lucky my friend Anny-san was visiting Kanazawa at the same time. (Her hometown is in Kanazawa.) She had some free time that evening so she was able to meet up with us there. Since it was starting to get dark by the time we arrived, plus with the continuous rain and wind, we didn’t stay very long. Aside from seeing the Higashi Chaya district, we also passed by the Asano River as well as walk through the Kazuemachi district.

After we left, we bid farewell to Anny-san and took the bus back towards Kanazawa Station. Then we backtracked to our hotel so we could change into dry socks. Hehe. My sister and I were feeling pretty miserable by then so we decided to ditch my uncle and watch a movie inside the upper levels of the Forus department store. (He actually went to buy new shoes cause it rained that much. Lol.) Since we had some time, we grabbed a light meal at Starbucks first, then we saw Clover at 7:00pm.

Once the movie was done a little after 9pm, we browsed through the restaurants inside Forus to decide what to eat and we ended up at this one place called Kamakura Pasta. I don’t even remember what I ordered but I paid 1290 yen for a set meal which included soup and pasta. Because we had our movie stubs with us, we also got dessert for free. Not bad for dinner. Plus the rain finally stopped when we were leaving, so I guess the night ended up alright. =P