Tuesday October 20 Takayama, traveling to Kanazawa

Tuesday October 20 Takayama, traveling to Kanazawa Partly cloudy, 18C. In the morning we pack our stuff as we will catch at 11am the train again. We check out and do mention we will contact HostelWorld, where we booked our reservation, to file a complaint that breakfast was at the last moment not included. She starts to phone and apologies follow. Also 2000 Yen for the mist breakfasts. We go to the supermarket and buy sandwiches, yoghurts and drinks Reservation for the first train fails as its already full, the second is no problem and we have our first reserved seats. When we enter the train in the non reserved seats section, its almost empty and we have excellent seats. If I check out the reserved seats section of the train, its completely full and even smells a bit because of the large crowd. I guess reservations are not always a benefit. ;-) We arrive in Kanazawa, where we enter a large train station with lots of modern and high glass structures, but the entrance is linked to a wooden traditional style torri-like poort. Rather nice. The Hotel is only 5 minutes walk along the main street, so we find it very fast. We can drop our bags. Check in of 16:00 is rather late, but we wanted to go sightseeing anyway. We go first to the Omi-chio market. A large hall with fresh fish, fruit and other products. We cross some other streets to enter the Kanazawa-Castle-Park. On the trip we pass in the middle of the city many temples and Shrines. Some seem to be used for offices now, but we are not sure. The larger ones are still temples. The long train trip and the many kilometers we walked today made us tired and we decide to move slowly back West towards the Naga-machi Buke Yashiki Ditrict, a place where the kept the old houses. Along our way we pass the High School and see a Star Bucks. We check out if they have hot chocolate, something we haven't seen before in our holiday. They do have it, even one chocolate with truffles and cream. We order it and go and sit in the back of the place in nice comfortable chairs. The chocolate tastes real good. Next to us are two high school girls having a break too. One of them turns and asks us where we are from, which country. So we tell her where we come from and that we are on a holiday in Japan for 4 weeks. The conversation lasts for about 30 minutes, but we had a very nice chat. About culture differences, our holiday plans, their school and future plans. Also about why Japanese show the peace / V sign when they go on a photo. Not clear yet, she will try to find out. We exchanged email to keep in contact. I also made a picture of the 2 ladies with Sheila, of course with the peace signs too :-) The old houses we wanted to see, were very nice, but it was already dark outside so called it a day. Near the hotel was a restaurant where we had a nice dinner together. I forgot to mention, that during the day, some people from Australia we met in the morning on the train station we kept seeing during the day. They took the same train, and afterwards the next train too, met them in the same hotel and even in the same restaurant. It was so funny and also interesting, because we had some nice conversations too with them. They were on a 10 day trip in Japan. Friendly folks.