Day #8 Takayama to Kanazawa

We started the morning with breakfast in the J-Hoppers hostel kitchen. We washed all our dishes, cleaned and left our room in as pristine a condition as when we arrived.

The melon bun and Japanese orange were really quite tasty. The hostel provided free tea or coffee.

There was a refrigerator that we thought was interesting. It had a fridge on top, the freezer in the middle and a vegetable drawer at the bottom.

After breakfast, we collected all our things and headed for the train station. There was a misunderstanding. They thought we were coming yesterday and were prepared for us. They weren't ready today but we managed to get to the train OK without their help... barely.

Once on board Auntie and mom had fun looking at the blog photos I posted. Auntie is thrilled that her "kids" are following her journey through this blog.

We made our connection from Nagoya to Kanazawa without too much hassle.

We caught a bullet train to Kanazawa. Woohoo! It was quite nice.

Once we reached Kanazawa, we left mom and auntie in a WARM waiting area while we braved the cold to find our next hotel. This time we're staying in a business hotel. It's called Toyoko-Inn and we love it! They have FREE Internet connection. Thus I'm able to get all caught up with our travels.

They also provide a FREE breakfast and dinner (granted it's Spartan) that's light but FREE... well sort of.

We decided to use a taxi to Kanazawa Castle. My aunt really loves castles and both sisters love history with a passion. They really got into an exuberant conversation with our taxi driver who also happened to be a history buff. I believe he was trying to impress my girls but I know they knew more than he did.

The castle has been under restoration and weren't allowing visitors. Luckily they had opened and we could go in. We saw them trimming this pine tree so that it had that distinctive Japanese shape.

Here they are ready to head on in. We could hardly hold auntie back.

We bumped into this docent outside and I know he loved sharing his knowledge with two ladies who could just not get enough of everything he showed them.

Granted it was all in Japanese so poor Art had to find his own information. There were little English recordings along the way that we appreciated.

Japan is really wonderful with accommodating the handicapped. I loved this chair lift for wheelchairs.

The steps at the castle were just impossible. You'd have to be a ninja to climb up these steps with ease. They were extremely steep. Mom was rather happy that she didn't even have to attempt it. Auntie would probably have mowed me down in her eagerness to get to the next level.

Here's a model of Kanazawa castle.

Interesting how the Japanese had moats around their castles, too.

This makes it look like the cherry blossoms are blooming everywhere but actually only ONE tree was blooming. We're here a week too early for the cherry blossoms.

Kanazawa castle belonged to a very rich lord. You'd think I'd remember his name but I've been rather bad on this trip and not getting my information down on my tablet so I can post it.

Back at the Toyoko-Inn, our bags had arrived safely from Takayama via the Takkyubin service. This is just the most amazing thing. We were able to send two (bulky) suitcases a great distance for just $27.00!

Our last thing to do was the laundry. We had quite a bit of it and it took a couple of hours to do it.

If I go to bed in five minutes, I'll have gone to bed before midnight. However, it feels great to be caught up. I can't believe we've been here for 8 days! Gracious! Half our trip is over!