So today we went to the Ninjya (that’s the correct spelling) Temple, but I can’t tell you much about it because Ninjya.
But first we met out guide for this morning - Tomako (not Tomahawk as I kept wanting to say!). First stop was the Geisha district (well, one of three in Kanazawa) where we were shown around by Tomaka (who was really really knowledgable about it.. Although apparently its standard as they’re a national treasure). They were particularly keen to point out that they were not prostitutes, but high quality entertainers with multiple talents..
Afterwards we were offered gold leaf ice cream, but being only 10am that was too early even for me! So instead we headed over to the Gold Leaf Museum where we were allowed to decorate with gold leaf something from a selection of items - we both chose chopsticks. Carol-Ann immediately got to show off her design skills by going for some kind of crazy leaf/third eye design that even had the staff impressed.. I was left scrabbling for ideas, went through a few before deciding on the Jersey flag.. I was going to do one with the Jersey flag and the other with the Japanese flag, but as the Japanese flag is basically a single circle and Carol was designing a masterpiece I felt that would’ve been too much of a “cop-out” so instead I ended up with writing Mojo in block text… Actually it turned out pretty well - there are pics below.
Having built up a thirst for gold, we went and had gold ice cream. Really. Check out the photos.
After the gold ice cream we went to the Ninjya Temple.. Hmm.. suppose I could tell you due to a technicality - which like us you’ll find out at the end.. So, when it was built there was a building restriction that allowed for only 3 stories, but they wanted more so they made secret rooms and floors. The whole temple was littered with traps and clever designs to protect the fuedal lord when they came to pray. There were hidden rooms for Samurai to hide in, pit traps on the inside of the front door and special stairs that would cast shadows into the inside if anyone tried to sneak in. In total they were actually 7 floors - talk about sneaky! It was all actually very impressive interior designing, but apparently I’m not allowed to start redesigning our home. So why have I decided to tell you about the Ninjya temple..? Well it wasn’t actually a Ninjya temple at all - its just developed that nickname because of all the traps! I know how you’re feeling now - I felt a bit conned a well, but it was still impressive. (Side note - Ninjya’s were actually Samurai, but rather than running around stabbing people, they were like the CIA, out doing sneaky stuff..)
After the Ninjya temple we jumped into a (mental) taxi to grab some lunch from a ramen restaurant. As we approached Tomahawk told the taxi driver that here was good (in Japanese) and he then stopped the meter.. but he kept driving. Tomahawk told him to stop and so he then did. She gave him a 1000 Yen to pay (it was around 750) and whilst sorting the change he opened the door (all taxi’s in Japan can open the passenger door from the drivers seat via a clever lever). Tomahawk started to get out then the taxi driver decided to drive on a bit - she nearly fell out! Then he stopped again. Carried on sorting out change. Then drove on a bit more.. We have absolutely no idea why, but it was slightly concerning as they were as close to shouting to each other in Japanese as is possible over here..
After this, our time with Tomahawk was at an end. We went into the restaurant for our lunch. Nothing really exciting to report here…
After lunch we headed over to the Japanese Gardens, which being a Sunday and Cherry blossom week, meant it was packed. Still managed to get a few photos without loads of people in them, again a selection of them are below. From the garden we headed over to the Castle. Now, one of the key points of Kanazawa is that it wasn’t ever really a fighting area, they were all too arty for that, so no-one really ever bothered attacking them, like ever, not even in WW2.. So it has a lot of very old original features and buildings. As we approached the castle it looked massively impressive - possibly the most impressive I have ever seen. We went over a bridge over a moat, up a big wide ramp, through some massive gates turned a corner and saw a huge building in front of us. At the side was another huge gate which we went though up another ramp around another corner and.. nothing. Just a big wide open space. Confused as to the location of this castle I looked at all of the maps I could find and eventually spotted a plaque that said that the huge great big outer wall that looked like it held a castle on the other side, was just a storeroom. Turns out they’re hoping for UNESCO World Heritage site, but as it was rebuilt from plans I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason it doesn’t already have it.. So the Japanese made all of their buildings out of wood and paper. To keep warm they made clever little fire pits in the house in sandboxes. Unsurprisingly one common story I’ve read is that there was always a “Great Fire of XXXX” - not really surprising really. We can only assume that the once amazing castle that was never attacked, accidentally burnt down. The only other theory I had was that it was a sneaky Ninjya ploy and the feudal lord actually hid in the temple, but had a massive castle with walls built as a decoy.. See - sneaky.
By this point it was gone 4:30pm and Japan had shut. No really - I’m not even joking. We decided to walk back to the hotel, drink coffee/champage/cocktails whilst I type this up. :)
