At the end of a day in Shirakawago we took another bus to Kanazawa. The journey between the two was particularly impressive as rather than navigate winding mountain routes the road cut right through mountains, with bridges over valleys, getting us to Kanazawa in under an hour. We must have travelled a fair distance and dropped quite a bit in altitude in that time as the temperature rose around 12 degrees centigrade. I personally also quite liked Kanazawa as it was the first Japanese city we visited after Tokyo and it had a very different feel - much more informal, a bit more free and edgy, and not as obsessively orderly as Tokyo.

The main attraction in Kanazawa is the Kenrokuen garden, which is where all the photos below are from. It was interesting to see how much a variety a garden could have without the colours from flowers, instead using different greens, mosses and trees, and contrasting textures such as smooth set against rippling water in a very controlled way.

We had a first taste of the powdered green tea, as used in Japanese tea ceremonies, with the small sweet, in the Kenrokuen garden tea house. This wasn't a tea ceremony but was very pleasant sitting next to the water:

The inside of the sweet:

The tea house itself:

A spooky carp in the garden pond:

A water feature:

Download all photos in high res (over 200mb total)

Next: Japan Trip, Part 6 - Kyoto