Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

2/12/2005, Kanazawa trip, day 2

The work of the day was to take a short hike in the snow, visit a historical grave site (bochi), and bathe in an onsen up in the mountains outside of Kanazawa.  Tough work, huh?

Turns out the hike and the cemetary were the same place.  The cemetary has an important, historical component on top of this big hill.  We took a bus for ≈45 minutes and then took a cab to the base of this hill.  We started hiking up, but the snow was deep and fresh enough that it was hard to do in sneakers.  We ran into the groundskeeper of the cemetary.  He was shovelling snow.  He offered to take us up to the top in his truck.  He ended up becoming a friend.  He is Korean-Japanese.  He was born in Korea, but was brought here by force by the Japanese government when he was five, probably around 1940 or so.  He gave Akemi a lengthy history lesson, which she appreciated very much.  She loves history.  I didn't understand.  That kind of Japanese is too hard.  I just enjoyed being in this beautiful place.  They were both a little annoyed that I kept saying the cemetary was so beautiful.  Not the kind of complement that is appropriate for a cemetary, I guess.

Our new friend.

The beautiful cemetary.  Don't tell anybody I said so.  Okay?

The road we drove along.

Near the top of the hill near the big monument.

He very much wanted to take our picture and add it to the collection.  I guess having pictures of visitors, especially foreign ones helps him make the case that the place is significant.  We plan to send this to him.

When we got back to Kanazawa station, we had this delicious thing called "yuki ichigo" which means "snow strawberry".  The outside is rice flour dough (mochi).  Inside is a strawberry and whipped cream surrounded in powdered sugar and surrounded again by the rice flour dough (mochi).  It's really delicious.

<Previous     -     Index     -     Next>