As mentioned in a previous post, T and I visited Kenrokuen numerous times over the year that we lived near Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture. This was the second time we went, accompanied by some family visiting from home...
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One of our go-to places to bring visitors while living in Japan was a small and beautiful craft village called Yunokuni no Mori, located in Komatsu, the neighbouring city to ours. This village was composed of Japanese gardens and traditional Japanese houses, each featuring displays and the chance to learn how to make crafts native to the Hokuriku region...
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The Horai Festival is an annual celebration of one of the local shrines in the city of Hakusan, Ishikawa. Vendors run food stalls on the streets while performers dance and shout on the main strip...
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On one sunny Saturday morning in September of 2018, T, myself, and our friend Adam woke up at 7am to take a drive out to Toyama, the neighbouring prefecture to Ishikawa...
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On a day that T was busy with a work conference, a friend and I decided to spend the day to get to know each other and the city of Kanazawa a little better. After grabbing a bite to eat, we ventured into the historic samurai village district and stumbled across the Nomura Samurai House...
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A fellow English teacher invited us to watch her annual Shamisen concert in the city. Shamisen is a traditional Japanese instrument first derived from Chinese instruments...
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In September 2018, T and I took a trip to Kyoto to meet with our Japanese friend who lives there. We met this friend back in Toronto while she was there on a working holiday visa, so of course, now that we were in Japan, we had to meet again in her home country!
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In addition to Kenroku-en Garden, T and I made our way around the city to the next two most famous sites: Kanazawa Castle and the Higashichaya historical geisha/tea district. We got a good taste for the history that Ishikawa had to offer. Interesting fact: Ishikawa is one of the few areas of Japan that was nearly untouched by the world wars, so a lot of its history is still in tact from before the 1900s!
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One of the sites we were really looking forward to seeing when we arrived in Ishikawa was a garden called Kenroku-en which was deemed one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan. The garden is meticulously groomed and maintained year-round to ensure its preservation. Below are photos from the first of many visits that we would make to the garden!
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For a long time, T and I had dreamt of travelling the world together. It wasn't until we looked into the Japan Exchange Teaching Programme (JET Programme) that we realized that living abroad was a real possibility...
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