Night time in Kanazawa

origamiunicorn ♦ July 31, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Walking in Kanazawa

I didn’t get to Kanazawa until early evening. The hotel was very luxurious and I had a spectacular view of the city, with the ocean off in the distance. I took several photos as the sun set. After I rested a bit, I took off to wander the city and find some dinner.

I decided to try to head away from the crowds a bit. The hotel strip had many malls and upscale restaurants. I wanted something more casual. As a I wandered, I heard loud explosions – fireworks! I walked briskly to the street corner where there was a small crowd watching. They were a bit far away, but you could see them just over the tops of the nearby buildings.

I scheduled my trip based on the dates of the trip my kids were supposed to go on. I planned the itinerary based on my cousin’s availability in Tokyo. Looking back at my schedule I realized that I was going to miss fireworks in Yokohama by a week, miss fireworks in Tokyo by just a few days, and miss fireworks in Kyoto by a few days as well. I’m sure the festivals I missed were significantly more spectacular than the distant fireworks I saw in Kanazawa, but I was overjoyed nonetheless.

Sushi

I wandered for awhile and couldn’t find a place I felt comfortable going to. Eventually I decided to head back to one of the shopping centers near the train station. I found a small sushi restaurant (Kanazawa is famous for fish) and saw there were a few people at the counter so I went in.

I started speaking in Japanese and the waiter said, in English, “would you like to order in English or practice Japanese”. Off to bad start but I laughed and ordered a beer and a couple of pieces of sushi: maguro and tai. They didn’t have Tai and suggested that I do the chef recommended sushi. I didn’t exactly understand what that meant but I said yes. The waiter left and the chef made me a couple of pieces. The chef did not speak much English so I chatted with him in Japanese. The sushi was absolutely amazing. He brushed each piece with shoyu, some he put wasabi on, some lemon, some coarse salt. Each was different. I had ebi, maguro, two different kinds of squid, one called kiss (a joke) and several other that I can’t remember. The ebi he gave me in secret and told me to eat it before the waiter came back – a freebie.

The conversation was a bit flirty. He wanted to know how old I was. I decided to quit while I was ahead and I was full anyway, so I paid and left. Definitely helped my confidence on many levels. 🙂

Conversation

Wandering back to the hotel I heard fireworks again! I was able to get a couple of photos of the fireworks looking through the gate of a small shrine.

The fireworks continued again when I was near the hotel. An older couple was standing next to me watching. I turned to them and said “Sugoi desu yo!” (Basically “awesome!”). They were surprised to hear me speaking Japanese so they started asking me questions. We had a nice conversation. They were Japanese, but in Kanazawa for vacation. It turned out we were staying at the same hotel, so we talked the whole way back.

We went our separate ways in the lobby and then I got on the elevator with another man. Feeling emboldened, I asked him “Hanabi o mimashita ka?” (“Did you see the fireworks?”). He said no and told me my Japanese was very good – though I think the bar is low because everyone seems to say that if you even attempt to speak in Japanese. I said “no it’s not good but thank you” in Japanese and I went to my room feeling a mild sense of victory.