We started the day pretty early. My wife’s parents dropped us off at Kanazawa station at around 7:30AM. We hopped on the bus with a few other people, and we were off.

http://www.kitanippon-kanko.co.jp/

They even gave us a points card that would give us a discount if we rode on more tours. Not sure if I will go on another tour, but I will take pride in knowing that I am or at least was a member.

We made a couple other stops along the way to pick up more people. Most of those stops were along the highway at rest stops. Rest stops in Japan, however, feel a lot more like rest stops I experienced in Europe and a lot less like American rest stops. American rest stops are usually no more than a bathroom, maybe a little bit of grass, and a place for semi-truck drivers to sleep. Japanese rest areas a much more deluxe. The couple we stopped at had the obvious bathroom, but they also had small stores for snacks and drinks as well as a couple places to get warm cooked food. The last one we went to had a small food court with a few restaurants. I’m curious if these types of places are fancier than usual, or if all of the rest stops in Japan are similar to this.

 

As we drove, in late March, it started snowing. I don’t believe the altitude was very high where we were driving, it was just cold outside…

As we drove, I saw out the window a Canon factory! I’d like to think that the Camera I was using was made there, but who knows. Maybe I will have to look it up later.

The road signs in Japan are very bright. This one was incredibly large, and would hopefully inform you of the potential hazards of the corners ahead…

I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger to take a picture of one of the coolest road signs I’ve ever seen, but I did find a picture of it online:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/461900505503860894/

Yes, that’s a picture of a Raccoon/Tanuki crossing…  I will probably talk about cars in another blog, but I wonder if raccoon’s are more larger here or can cause more damage to the cars.

I also didn’t get a picture of some of the traffic signs, but they were pretty cool too! They even showed a little icon of the weather ahead. Rain showed a small umbrella with rain drops. Snow was a little snowman.  Why don’t we show weather on traffic signs in America. Or at least we don’t do that in Seattle. I don’t remember seeing anything like that in other cities in America either though.

Taga-taisha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taga-taisha

The first stop we visited. There was quite a bit of traffic, so we only had 20 minutes to run to this shrine, and take a quick look.

My wife showed me how to use this scoop to wash your hands and lips before visiting the shrine.

I purchased a fortune. We ran out of time, so my wife couldn’t translate it for me right then, but basically it was good luck. After seeing your fortune, you can tie it up here and the monks will dispose of it for you. There is probably some other meaning that I’m unaware of… I’m sure someone reading this will see just how ignorant I am with Shrines/Temples and their associated religions. I’ll have to research more about them so I can have a better understanding and appreciation for places like these.

Wikipedia says one of the things this Shrine is known for is successful marriages. I wonder if that is why my mother-in-law picked out this bus tour. 🙂

 

Shabu-shabu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu

After visiting the Shrine, we went to a cafeteria looking building to have Shabu-Shabu. Basically, it’s a little pot with a candle underneath it. There is water in the pot and you get to boil your own food before you eat it! It was pretty fun.

Despite getting a good luck fortune from the Shrine only minutes before, I was the only one whose candle the waitress forgot to light. So my water took a while to heat up before boiling, while everyone else started eating. My wife told me that the fortune was overall good luck and not something small and immediate like this lit candle. Let’s hope she is right.

I felt a little bad for the people next to me though. I would say I’m decent with Chopsticks/Hashi, but some foods are still difficult for me to pick up. Udon/Thick noodles being one of them.  Trying to pick them up and raise them pretty high before placing them in the boiling water wasn’t easy, and I might have splashed a bit…

Afterwards, we were shuffled to the obligatory gift shop where they sold local foods and snacks. Apparently, the prefecture has a little mascot and they sold quite a few gifts with him on it.

 

Kiyosu Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyosu_Castle

The next stop was this castle where a famous samurai lived long ago. Since the tour was all in Japanese, and most of the signs explaining things in the castle were also only in Japanese, I didn’t understand much of the history or details. I’ll have to research more about this place later.

They did have a pretty cool room where you could try on a samurai outfit! and yes, I did try one on. Fake sword/Katana, helmet, body armor, the works.

 

Atsuta Shrine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsuta_Shrine

https://atsutajingu.or.jp/en/intro/

Many popular Shrines sell amulets and other small things that can bring help with a number of things such as, helping to find a job, helping to conceive a baby, bringing overall good luck, having a successful marriage, healing after car accidents, overall good health, good luck on a test, keeping your pet safe, etc. I’m considering buying one of every kind they sell so that I will become literally invincible/unstoppable in life.

Supposedly this pond can dispel all your bad luck if you use a scoop to splash water the same amount of times as your age. i.e. if you are 70, you have to stand their and splash water 70 times… 30 took long enough. I guess that is another reason getting old isn’t fun.

I’ve seen my fair share of bathrooms, but even in this popular tourist spot you think men could get a little more privacy than that…

 

Nabana no Sato

http://www.nagashima-onsen.co.jp/nabana/illumination/index.html/

As our tour guide stated, here is the “main evento”,  the Illumination. Supposedly, it was a large flower garden that wanted to increase revenue. In doing so they decided to include a light show in the evening.

During the day you can walk around and view all of their flowers, and their plum blossoms were blooming.

They had multiple rooms filled with large walls of Begonias. It was actually very pretty.

I was surprised to see a vending machine with actual film in it still. I would imagine the people that are still diehards about old school film would probably have the forethought to bring lots of film with them… but who knows.

As it started to get darker, every started “lining up” or rather “cramming together”… to see the light show. The head of the line was actually pretty far away from here.

Once we got through a bit of the line, we started to see the light show. It began with a long white-ish tunnel. When people have a near death experience, they mention a long white tunnel. I asked my wife if this was the end… being crammed in a tunnel with a ton of people?

After a while, it was actually quite amusing. The sheer number of people, all wanting to see the lights. The worst however, were the old ladies/obasans. With their sharp elbows they would push their way to the front. Japanese people so far have been extremely polite, but maybe when x-mas lights are involved, all bets are off.

Even people lined up on the balconies to see the lights.

During the wait to get a closer up view of the lights and Mt Fuji, I was wondering, would this be as popular in America? I’m not so sure. During X-mas time, all of the houses in neighborhoods with holiday spirit are all lit up, and I imagine that seeing that would probably be good enough for most people. Since they don’t really do X-mas lights in Japan, maybe that’s why seeing light shows like this is more popular. Granted that this is a ton of lights, and still impressive, I think most Americans would probably come to see the garden, and avoid the crowd that we saw.

I should note however, that the crowd may have been larger than normal since it was a 3 day weekend, and it was also one of the last weekends to see the Mt. Fuji light show, they were going to put something else up at the end of March.

The lights would rotate though and even show a rainbow on the mountain.

Occasionally, it would turn red which reminded me of lava pouring down the volcano. I’m not sure what the significance of red was, but it seemed like an odd choice from the rest of the colors they picked.

 

Trip stops: