My first destination was Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture. It is located to the west of Japan, close to the sea and is surrounded by mountains. I met a few other summer school participants and joined them in exploring the city. Kanazawa is a beautiful city with a blend of modern skyscrappers, traditional and old residences with wooden houses and narrow streets, gardens, historical sites and museums. It was also raining all the time! It seems that there is a local proverb that says "even if you forget your lunchbox, don't forget your umbrella." I read it a little too late and didn't had an umbrella, though I don't regret it.
This gate is the icon of Kanazawa city.
Traditional Japanese houses and street. The arcitecture is simple and elegant.
Every house has a garden inside.
Kanazawa Castle
Kenroku-en Garden
We next visited JAIST (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) the next day. Its a new Institute with with hi-tech computing facilities and posh classrooms and a scenic campus.
A supercomputer inside JAIST
A view of the campus
That afternoon we started traveling towards the Hakusan seminar house for the summer school. The drive was spectacular. We traveled through paddy fields, vegetable farms, rivers and valleys, and so got a good glimpse of rural Japan. The seminar house is located in an isolated location and has no access to Internet. There were mountains and dense forests all around. Naturally there are also several hiking places.
We ascended a near by mountain one evening.
We played the werewolf game every night.. that was fun!
One of the best parts of the trip was the werewolf game. We were playing every night till about 1.30 AM! The game is pretty interesting with special cards especially when there are more than 10 players.
On one of the days we went to a hot spring resort. There are many such hot pools/springs in Japan and many of them are naturally hot. I am not sure whether the one I went to is natural or not. (But I suspect that they have some kind of control to ensure that the water is not too hot or cold). In any case it was a unique experience. Spent about 40 minutes in 43C pool without any clothes. That was close to getting boiled :) I was red, tired and dehydrated by the time I came out.
Coming to the food, finding vegetarian food in restaurants is very difficult. Most dishes contain some seafood or meat. One good thing however is that most restaurants have pictures of the dishes. So I had to go for the dish that looked the most vegetarian. In the seminar house there were vegetarian meals and they also looked more traditional. I loved the food there. Japanese have the greatest life expectancy in the world and they are also thinner and fitter on avg than the rest of the world. I think the main reason is their food and lifestyle. Compared to Indians, they (traditionally) eat more vegetables, less rice (compared to south Indians) and don't eat any dairy products! They also eat fish regularly.
A typical lunch I had in Japan. Three of the bowls have Tofu!
The public transportation there is the best in the world and I have observed that the cars there are much more smaller than the ones in US/Canada. The houses are also smaller. Japan's population density is similar to that of India, yet 70% of the land is covered with forests and hills! It is a world leader in nature conservation and sustainable energy (though its not perfect by any means).
On the whole I had a great experience though I wish I had some more time to explore other cities like Kyoto and Tokyo.
looks like you had a good time :)
ReplyDeletebtw slightly off the topic-
i have heard tht Rajnikath is v popular in Japan ;)
I think the Japanese find him really funny :)
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