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Travels both intrepid and trepidatious, around the world and around the block |
KanazawaDown home with geishas and samuraiby Kelly Monaghan Kanazawa is the hub of Japan's Hokuriku region, which comprises the prefectures of Fukui, Ishikawa, Toyama, and Gifu. It lies northeast of Kyoto and northwest of Tokyo near the Japan Sea. The city has been described as "the other Kyoto," which means that it possesses the charm of history without so much of the crush of modern Japan. There's plenty of that, of course. Kanazawa is, after all, a major industrial powerhouse. But this is one of the few Japanese cities I've visited that gives the impression that living there would actually be pleasant, without the pressure-cooker atmosphere of other urban centers.
Across town, in the Nagamachi Samurai District, is another remnant of old Japan. Here the narrow streets are lined not with wooden house fronts but with the high stone walls that shielded the gardens and gracious homes of the moneyed class from prying eyes. Here you can almost see Toshiro Mifune rushing through the streets of Sanjuro, sword drawn, ready to do battle with the next batch of hired goons. You can also get a peek behind the walls at the Nomura Family Samurai House, where you will discover that the samurai tradition placed just as much emphasis on art, beauty, and refinement as it did on swordplay. The garden here, which features a 400-year-old tree, is lovely, although I couldn't help wondering if perhaps in its heyday it was a little more austere and less crowded than it seems today. The main attraction in Kanazawa, however, is Kenrokuen, the sprawling hilltop garden that ranks as one of Japan's three greatest. We arrived at the height of sakura season, or cherry blossom time, and in celebration the gardens were open free of charge. Fortunately, we arrived early in the day, so we had some time to appreciate the spot's quiet charms before the inevitable throngs arrived.
Actually, the secret to a truly successful vacation trip to Japan is to come during the sakura season, a sliding three- to five-day window from late March to mid-April, that begins in the south and inches its way up the islands. Cherry trees are something of a national obsession in Japan and otherwise drab settings become a vision in pink when the cherry trees bloom. Viewing the blossoms at their height is a highly competetive activity among the Japanese. Offices dispatch junior staffers, sometimes a day or so in advance, to stake out prime viewing spots in the parks. You can see them, slightly the worse for wear, guarding the little plots they have covered with bright blue tarps. Predicting the blossom season with pinpoint accuracy is impossible, of course. You just have to take your chances. We were especially fortunate. The spring of '99 was cool and, during our visit, rain-free, so the blossoms lasted longer than they do in some years. Indeed, they seemed to be at their peak everywhere we went. Kenrokuen lives up to its billing, with a wide variety of vistas and settings. From one side, you can look across a ravine to Ishakawa-mon, the gate to Ishikawa Castle. The castle itself is gone, destroyed by fire, but the gate and its outer walls are reminders of how spectacular it must have been. From the other side of the garden you look out over Kanazawa to the snow-capped (in Spring and Winter) mountains of Toyama prefecture. Kenrokuen was once the private garden of the Maeda clan, the rulers of Ishikawa Castle. It was only in 1871 that peasants like you and me were allowed a peek inside. Like many Japanese gardens, Kenrokuen was intended as an artful recreation of nature in the wild; as such, it embodies the six attributes that, according to the Japanese, make for the perfect garden: spaciousness, seclusion, artfulness, antiquity, water, and panoramas.
In its more than 26 acres you'll find hilly woods, idyllic ponds with waterside tea houses, lily lined streams, broad open spaces, and secluded nooks perfect for lovers. Great care has been taken to protect the parks ancient trees. One rambling old pine has its meandering branches held aloft by a none-too-attractive series of crutches. In the winter many trees are protected by teepee-like superstructures to which the branches are tied lest they be weighed down by the snow and crack. A highlight of the garden is the Seison Kaku Villa, built in 1863 as the retirement home for the mother of a lord of the Kaga clan. This is no mother-in-law apartment but a 3,000 square foot shingle-roofed mansion on two floors. One of its more innovated features is a cantilevered roof (shades of Frank Lloyd Wright!) that allowed the architect to provide his patron with a pillar-less verandah facing the garden. The large, golden-walled formal rooms on the ground floor are set off with intricately carved and brightly painted wooden latticework. And the smaller private rooms upstairs, with their arresting earth tone pastel color schemes have a surprisingly modernist feel about them. If you are in Kanazawa during cherry blossom time, don't miss the opportunity to visit Kenrokuen at night; it's the only time of the year you can do this. Candle-lit lanterns light the grounds and the experience is wonderful in spite of, or maybe even because of, the crowds. Our visit to Kanazawa made me feel that "old" Japan was still there, in bits and pieces, perhaps, tucked away in corners, but accessible nonetheless. I felt reassured. This article is based on a visit in April of 1999. Prices and other information were accurate as of that date. (For more pictures of Kenrokuen, click here. Be patient, download time may be long.) Next... Himeji Castle To read the entire series, click here. Didn't find what you were looking for? Try a Google search.
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The
Intrepid Traveler |
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This
impression was no doubt fostered by our wise choice of lodging, a 100-year-old
former geisha house in the Higashi Geisha District, across the Asanogawa
River away from central Kanazawa. The Yougetsu Minshuku ("minshuku"
is the term for the moderately priced Japanese equivalent of a b&b)
sits at one end of one of the most photographed streets in Japan. It retains,
almost completely, the look and feel of nineteenth century Japan, its
two-story wooden facades plain and austere, its pavements spotlessly clean,
the pristine vista uninterrupted until it reaches a dead end backed by
a tree-fringed hill. In the early morning mist or late at night, lit only
by the period streetlamps, it is a magical place.
