Japan Trip: Kanazawa and Karaoke - Day Nine
We started off the morning around 9 or so with a modest breakfast of tasty chocolate loaf and mandarin orange. Dan got a ride from his friend Peaches, and we packed our day bags (including DS) and headed out to the train station. We got there a little too early, so we wandered around a bit of downtown Takefu. There are some cute little shops, including one that looked like it made paper statues of things like Godzilla and dinosaurs and such.
On the train, we were not able to take a seat. Friday was a national cultural holiday and apparently Kanazawa is a fairly good cultural spot. We camped out in the aisle and broke out our DSes for some crazy wireless gameplay. Tetris and Starfox and Big Brain Academy, oh my. It was a lot of fun.
When we arrived in Kanazawa, Dan found the tourist information desk and asked their English speaking volunteer to make a reservation for us at the Ninja-dera. We were both a little distracted by her amazing cleavage that she seemed inclined to show us at least a dozen times over the course of one conversation.
We grabbed the Kanazawa Loop Bus and first made our way to the 21st Century Modern Art Museum. There was a ton of free exhibits in there including some crazy stuffed dog, a series of large scale Christmas ornaments, and a pool that had underneath its surface a pathway for another exhibit. I feel like the people in the bottom of the pool were looking up and thinking, "Oh, I went into this exhibit and now there are foreigners on in it! It's art!" It was pretty cool.
We wandered over to the gardens next store which seemed to be free for this cultural day. They were pretty full up. Dan and I stopped at a little shop for a lunch of fatty beef udon. Dan had some tasty ramen (also fatty). We spent the next few hours exploring the gardens, the weird ass squatting toilets, and the local castle. Lots of fun to hang out with the guy and just talk about whatever all day. I ended up getting a drink from the vending machine that wasn't what I thought it would be, but ended up being tasty and refreshing anyway.
We grabbed another loop bus over to the Ninja House which is not actually a Ninja House but really a temple laid out with elaborate traps to foil invaders. It was really interesting and cool! 23 different stairways and 4 floors jammed into a building that looked like it was only two floors tall. The tour was all in Japanese, but they had a direct translation that was in a little book that they gave us for the duration of the tour.
After we finished the tour, we went and waited for the loop bus. We waited through the time when two of them should have arrived and jumped on a super crowded one, so I got to experience a bit of the crowded public transport that Japan is rather famous for. We got back to the train and headed back to Takefu.
Back home, Dan was going to cook us some dinner when he got a call from Colin Hood. He invited us both out to Fukui City for some karaoke. Considering that last night's had fallen through, we accepted. Colin showed up in his tiny ass yellow plate car and we headed out.
The first stop was a kick-ass Thai restaurant where I had some amazing curry and Dan had some Thai noodle dish that the chef recommended. Another dozen people showed up and when we finished we headed out to a bar for someone's birthday. After a short trip there, we wandered over to Big Echo for some karaoke.
Karaoke was amazing. Dan and I had a sweet rendition of REM's Losing My Religion and everyone screamed themselves out to
Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. I think the highlight of the evening were a variety of songs where Dan just had a mic and "helped" other people sing songs. He had a super-fast and loud version of Guns 'N' Roses' Paradise City that was pretty awesome.
Left karaoke with a ton of people around 2:30 AM and crammed five of us into this tiny car. After getting lost a couple times, we dropped off two people and picked up two more before making our way back to Takefu. Very tired, but a lot of fun.
On the train, we were not able to take a seat. Friday was a national cultural holiday and apparently Kanazawa is a fairly good cultural spot. We camped out in the aisle and broke out our DSes for some crazy wireless gameplay. Tetris and Starfox and Big Brain Academy, oh my. It was a lot of fun.
When we arrived in Kanazawa, Dan found the tourist information desk and asked their English speaking volunteer to make a reservation for us at the Ninja-dera. We were both a little distracted by her amazing cleavage that she seemed inclined to show us at least a dozen times over the course of one conversation.
We grabbed the Kanazawa Loop Bus and first made our way to the 21st Century Modern Art Museum. There was a ton of free exhibits in there including some crazy stuffed dog, a series of large scale Christmas ornaments, and a pool that had underneath its surface a pathway for another exhibit. I feel like the people in the bottom of the pool were looking up and thinking, "Oh, I went into this exhibit and now there are foreigners on in it! It's art!" It was pretty cool.
We wandered over to the gardens next store which seemed to be free for this cultural day. They were pretty full up. Dan and I stopped at a little shop for a lunch of fatty beef udon. Dan had some tasty ramen (also fatty). We spent the next few hours exploring the gardens, the weird ass squatting toilets, and the local castle. Lots of fun to hang out with the guy and just talk about whatever all day. I ended up getting a drink from the vending machine that wasn't what I thought it would be, but ended up being tasty and refreshing anyway.
We grabbed another loop bus over to the Ninja House which is not actually a Ninja House but really a temple laid out with elaborate traps to foil invaders. It was really interesting and cool! 23 different stairways and 4 floors jammed into a building that looked like it was only two floors tall. The tour was all in Japanese, but they had a direct translation that was in a little book that they gave us for the duration of the tour.
After we finished the tour, we went and waited for the loop bus. We waited through the time when two of them should have arrived and jumped on a super crowded one, so I got to experience a bit of the crowded public transport that Japan is rather famous for. We got back to the train and headed back to Takefu.
Back home, Dan was going to cook us some dinner when he got a call from Colin Hood. He invited us both out to Fukui City for some karaoke. Considering that last night's had fallen through, we accepted. Colin showed up in his tiny ass yellow plate car and we headed out.
The first stop was a kick-ass Thai restaurant where I had some amazing curry and Dan had some Thai noodle dish that the chef recommended. Another dozen people showed up and when we finished we headed out to a bar for someone's birthday. After a short trip there, we wandered over to Big Echo for some karaoke.
Karaoke was amazing. Dan and I had a sweet rendition of REM's Losing My Religion and everyone screamed themselves out to
Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. I think the highlight of the evening were a variety of songs where Dan just had a mic and "helped" other people sing songs. He had a super-fast and loud version of Guns 'N' Roses' Paradise City that was pretty awesome.
Left karaoke with a ton of people around 2:30 AM and crammed five of us into this tiny car. After getting lost a couple times, we dropped off two people and picked up two more before making our way back to Takefu. Very tired, but a lot of fun.