Kanazawa garden and castle

My first time in Kanazawa comprised being lost for a while – an unavoidable consequence of (independent) travelling, and rarely problematic. But when I was found again, I decided to have a look at Kanazawa’s famous Kenrokuen Garden, recognised as one of the three best gardens in Japan – and that’s saying something in a country with many beautiful gardens.

I did not expect Kanazawa Station to be such a magnificent new structure; my mental picture was of a small city station. As the snapshot of the exit below shows, my mental picture was completely wrong! I knew where I was at that stage, but the feeling soon dissipated, and I had some adventures finding my lodging. A story for another day.

When finally I headed to the garden, I managed to find a nice entry path – which was not in fact to the garden at all, but to the adjacent castle. Oh, dear! One of those days … I was intrigued however at the lovely greenery, glistening in the drizzle that was falling, and the collection of statues, and at first thought that they were leading to the garden. I could not work out why (most of) the statues of women were naked and all the statues of men were clothed! Very strange, but perhaps some cultural mores are involved?

The sample of four (of many) statues here attracted my attention for other reasons, too. I was impressed to see a female nude not obviously showing a ‘perfect’ figure, for example. And I would have liked to know who the scholars (?) were, but all the annotations were in Japanese. And, anyway, I needed to find the garden before it closed, and I saw the top of part of what was clearly Kanazawa castle nearby, and realised I was lost again:

When I did find the actual garden, shortly afterwards, I was not disappointed. It’s really beautiful, and I enjoyed strolling around it in the fading sunlight and the slight misty-moisty drizzle. The photo at the top of this blog shows a famous view.

I learned from the guidebook that a perfect landscape garden should combine six elements: spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, watercourses and panoramas. This one succeeded in all respects, and it was lovely to walk around. [I was also pleased that this was one of the few places in Japan where I was given a Seniors’ discount and entered for free after proving my (advanced) age!]

Here are some assorted views of the garden, which hopefully speak for themselves. (You can tap on them if you wish to enlarge them and see the whole picture in most cases).

It was nice to see at least one lantern turned on (as it was now past five o’clock and getting dark):

The garden had lots of water in it, and so also had lots of bridges, as well as some workmen in the river:

Some of the water was vertical, rather than horizontal, too:

Of course, the selfie brigade were out in force, as were the kimonos. I am no longer surprised to see people taking pictures of themselves in what is quite likely the single most photographed piece of garden in Japan.

I did notice that quite a few of the (ancient) trees had logs supporting their branches, like these. I guess that’s necessary with seriously old trees, although the garden is not much more than 300 years old. [In fact, I found out later that the supports are there for the winter, so that heavy snowfalls do not break the branches.]

 

Having already found Kanazawa Castle once, I decided to find it again, for a quick look before closing time. It was less impressive than the garden, which is what I expected, but was still worth a quick look. The castle gate through which I went was impressive:

Inside there was lots of lawn as well as attractive bits of castle. However, I knew that the castle (like most Japanese castles, which used to be made of wood) was a replacement for an earlier version, and hence really a sort of fake castle. Still, It looked impressive:

I have no idea why ravens seem to be attracted to castles, both in Shakespearean plays, in England generally and now in Japan. Very odd.

The sight of a trio of young women with their kimonos was more than I could ignore, so couldn’t resist a couple of snaps. (I reasoned to myself that the sole purpose of their wearing kimonos was to be photographed, and so I obliged):

So, it was a quick trip, and I took many more photos than are shown here, but I was satisfied that my first afternoon in Kanazawa was both pleasant and successful, despite the earlier navigational hiccups.

On the way home, still learning where the bus went and where I live, I enjoyed a stroll along the nearby river, which had some lovely older style houses as well as some interesting bridges.

It’s nice to walk somewhere when you first arrive, just to get your bearings, and I’m going for another walk tomorrow morning.