Kenrokuen

Earlier in February, my friend and I took a day trip to Kanazawa. Kanazawa is located in Ishikawa prefecture and is on the west side of Japan (Sea of Japan side). It is about 2.5 hours from Osaka, passing through Kyoto, Shiga, and Fukui. It is amazing to me how far you can travel in just a couple of hours and how you can end up in a completely different place than where you started. I had been interested in visiting Kanazawa’s famous garden, Kenrokuen, because I saw pictures on the internet of it in the winter and it looked beautiful. The pictures showed scenes of it covered in beautiful fluffy snowy and I hoped that it would be snowing when we went. I had my doubts though, because they show pictures of Kinkakuji (the golden pavilion) in Kyoto with snow but I don’t think snow piles up in Kyoto anymore. I kept checking the weather everyday to see if it was supposed to snow or not. The weather forecast showed some snow and some rain throughout the week, but I imagined it to be like when it snows here in Osaka, which is only for about 20 minutes at a time and it never piles up.

There is no shinkansen (bullet train) in that direction, so we took a special express train there. After going through Kyoto, we started going through a bunch of tunnels, which made it perfect for taking a little mid-morning nap. After what seemed like an hour or so of tunnels, the train suddenly emerged into open air and we were surrounded by bright, blindingly white snow! My jaw dropped in surprise and I let out a small gasp but was speechless. I had never seen anything like it and did not expect it at all! The scene was breathtaking. We traveled through the Japanese countryside and saw little houses with about a foot of beautiful white, marshmallow-like snow of their roofs. The forests were also lovely, with random clumps of snow on the trees and what seemed like mounds and mounds of snow on the ground. The snow was so white it hurt my eyes. That’s okay though, because I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore after that.

In my almost-four years living in Japan, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. There may be other parts of the world that have arguably more beautiful sunsets, beaches, cityscapes, etc. but Japan wins in the winter-cuteness category. The little Japanese houses with their clay-tiled roofs looking like cute little huts covered in snow look like they came straight out of a Ghibli movie. We passed through dozens of towns like this and it made me all the more excited to arrive in Kanazawa where I now knew there would be snow. Snow! Piles of fluffy white snow! What is it that makes snow look so soft and touchable? Not being exposed to snow growing up, it is very easy to feel like a kid seeing snow for the first time and to feel tempted to roll around in it—it is also very easy to forget that snow does not feel the way it looks and it will make you wet. And cold. When we arrived at Kanazawa station I was happy to see snow outside. The station looked very big and new, which was kind of surprising for a remote location like Kanazawa. We popped into a nearby Starbucks and picked up some caramel white hot chocolates with a shot of espresso (it’s basically dessert in a drink!) for the road. We walked along the neatly-plowed roads to explore the town. The area around the station seemed to be mostly businesses and hotels, with some apartments, but it had a nice vibe.

We strolled through the town and found some fresh fish markets. People were lining up to each ikura (salmon roe) and crab…crab is so expensive in Japan! It can be up to $100 for one! We walked around for awhile and found our way to Kenrokuen and Kanazawa Castle. We had some nice hot udon for lunch and then walked around the garden. It was very pretty with all the snow—I think it was the perfect time to go.

It was a fun day trip and great experience seeing snow in Japan. I hope I’ll get to visit other new places this year.