Tripping: Kanazawa City

Today we headed out and investigated Kanazawa city to get a feel for it. We looked through the 1600s built tea house areas, crafting family houses, Ashigaru housing and Samurai house and gardens. Gardens were incredible!

Samurai History (Skip if you like) - Vita might be able to help me out here. Here is a good read on the history of Kanazawa. Ashigaru were the lowest level conscripted warriors, but we were surprised to find some of the houses here to be quite good for Ashigaru. The Kaga clan were around this area and the ruling clan was eventually Maeda which you see the most reminance of today. A large Shrine to the Maeda lord is in town and many temples are about, but one in particular is one we'll visit tomorrow which is filled with intrigue. The Ikko Ikki (Jodo-Shinshu pure land sect of Buddhism) defended by the well equipped Shimozuma clan from Omi province originally retreated back to Echizen and Kaga after having their temple destroyed. The famous Hongan-ji I think. The Ikko-Ikki were seen as fanatics because they were anti Samurai and saw the Samurai masters as cruel. They were a hoard of peasants and monks who became the the largest thread to Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Their fighting style and reduction in armor made them formidable and threatening. Fighters of faith. There was a 10 year siege between Oda and the Ikko Ikki I believe, longest siege in history of Japan. Eventually Oda forced the Emperor to ask them to leave I think. The major clans were trying to stamp them out because of their way of thinking more than their power. After 150 years of civil war, I'm not surprised the people wanted equality and to try something new than the feudal lords method :\ I'm still a fan of the Samurai way though, the discipline and balance is great ;) American Troops/Samurai Warriors = poles apart.

Erin and I really enjoyed the Samurai houses and their gardens and I'll post some more photos below. Each of the Samurai's houses had a method of construction, paying special attention to the one stable for his horse, his servant's quarters and the gardens, his place of tranquility. One of the houses we visited had a beautiful stream running through it, with 3 seperate gardens, hand crafted over hundreds of years. The way they work the trees and grow new trees onto old trees (Next generations) are amazing. Nothing like we are used to. The tree trunks themselves look incredibly old and you can see they've been well manacured over the years. There is a special connection to nature that is very sacred and much more depth to their history and philosophy. Much older country :)

After we strolled around the tourist areas we decided to hit the local markets which were pretty impressive, lots of huge fish, crabs, squid, fresh vegetables and fruit, crafts and flowers. Unforunately I made the mistake of showing Erin some crabs still alive and dying on ice and of course she didn't much like that so I bought her some flowers on our way out :) Whoops...

We enjoyed some Japanese Italian for the first time that night and both really enjoyed their style. We may even hit it up again while we're here. Have eaten so much Japanese food that we're going to start mixing it up a little now :P

In our Kanazawa Miyako Hotel