Rice, spare, sea and samurai...

can come close to yet far from encapsulating our long weekend getaway.

S and Gilou, rented car, GMS and I somehow made our way to the beautiful sites of the Western Japanese coast--Noto Peninsula, and finally Kanazawa, ironically, the first place I "lived" in Japan three years ago now for my study abroad orientation. Seems like light years ago, literally, since I could barely remember places I had even been before. Perhaps one's first week in Japan and one's 80th or so week in Japan don't necessarily feel the same...


Escaping Tokyo's labyrinth of concrete and lights for a weekend can really make you appreciate the lesser developed parts of the country, that's for sure. Never in my life have I seen so many shades of green in one place. The deep green of the tree tops makes the verdant bright green of the rice paddies stand out that much more. We were lucky our GMS navigated the way through some of the most isolated country roads.





The weather was in our favor, but unfortunately the road was not. While driving on one such country road, surrounded by only rice fields and more than one hour from the nearest town, S turned a curve about a tire's width too close to the left. Into the irrigation ditch (also known as "gaijin trap") we went. Fortunately we were following our other friends, who turned around when they realized we weren't behind. They were able to find a thick rope wrapped around a random fence, S was able to find a small tree, and one hour, a spare tire, and some frustration later, we were able to haul the car out of the ditch.


So in addition to the rice fields and farm houses, Noto is of course a peninsula, so it also offers some of the most beautiful rocky coastline in Japan. I thought I would be "beaching it" for most of the weekend, but really there were very few nice beaches. We hit one on the way back to Kanazawa (click for more pics), and we managed a nap and a swim in the sea, but otherwise I would not recommend the Sea of Japan coast for beachfront property.






We finished the trip in Kanazawa, the "little Kyoto," with some sightseeing in Kenroku-en, deemed one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan, a tour of the "Ninja Temple," which was actually named such just because of the maze of hidden passageways and staircases inside. It was one of the few buildings that remained after WWII, and it is the original structure from the 1600s. And then we explored Higashi-chaya and Nishi-chaya (where this pic is), which were the old geisha teahouse districts, kind of like Gion in Kyoto.

Anyway, the rest of the photos are magnificent, so have a look for yourself!! This will probably be one of my last travels in Japan for a while, so I went a little picture crazy. But for good reason, of course!