Natadera

We had a lot of firsts this weekend. First time to downtown (technically second, but I'm not counting going in a taxi to City Hall to fill out paperwork), first time getting caught out in a pouring rainstorm, first time on a train in Japan, first time in a religious place in Japan (Natadera), first time trying black sesame ice cream, first time taking the bus...lots of firsts, and all in one day.

We found out that Catia, an English teacher at KTC, was going out to a town called Kagaonsen on Saturday to see the sights, and went along.

We were to meet Catia and another friend of hers at the train station in the morning. As Friday had been hot and Saturday was shaping up sunny, we dressed lightly. Twenty minutes into our hour plus walk to the train station it starts pouring rain. Thankfully, we were passing in front of a 100 yen store (dollar store) at the time and bought two umbrellas for two bucks. The umbrellas in Japan can be very small and for $1 you get an umbrella that is comically undersized for Westerners in an actual rainstorm, so everything below about waist hight got soaked. This was not pleasing, but we successfully navigated all the way through the rather ritzy downtown area (saw Gucci stores and similar) to the train station.














They had a sweet clock / fountain thing. Train station in the background.














There was some confusion about trains and platforms but we asked a Japanese person to read the characters on the ticket for us and they pointed us at the right place. The train had some cool features - any given row of seats can be rotated to face the other direction just by stepping on a pedal and giving it a push - so the four of us could sit face-to-face and chat as opposed to sitting in rows. To find open seats we had to go to the last car, past the smoking zone, which was gross. Unfortunately, the rear of the train was, unbeknownst to us, lacking in doors, so when we got to our stop we couldn't get out before the train started moving again. We had to take a local train back from whatever that town was to Kagaonsen.

Once in Kagaonsen we noticed their fine giant statue thing, and grabbed lunch at the supermarket before getting on the bus to go to Natadera.

















Note the giant golden statue and our two cheap umbrellas.

Natadera is a temple complex with very nice gardens and impressive terrain. I've put up just a few pictures on the blog - see the full set here.


































Some of the paths and tunnels looked to have been hand carved out a looong time back and were actually kind of sketchy from a safety perspective - would have been easy to slip off a precipice or two.

We wandered around for a couple hours until it was time to get on the last bus back to the station, but while waiting for the bus we tried out black sesame ice cream from a place right in front of Natadera. Despite the picture and the questionable coloration, it was quite sweet and mild. I think they could have gone heavier on the sesame too - reminded me of peanut butter ice cream and has a good sweet/salt thing going on.

















We took the train back without major drama, and then had to figure out the bus system to avoid having to walk back in the dark in the rain. Catia briefed us - in Kanazawa you take a ticket when you get on the bus, and pay when you get off by putting both ticket and exact change into a thingie that collects them. I think you could underpay and get away with it as I don't think it reads the ticket, but the fee was reasonable and not walking back was good.
Day was adventurous and educational, but not relaxing. And if Natadera is indicative, they have serious gardens here.