Kanazawa city and the castle gardens

From Takayama we continued 120km East to Kanazawa city,  a city of about half a million people still it looks more developed and cleaner than Auckland. The journey combined a very slow train journey through the mountains, from Takayama to Tayoma, and then a super express train from Tayoma to Kanazawa – that was an amazing trip with the fastest land speed I ever had in my life! And I did experience some fast speeds when riding a Skyline GTR aye!

The main attraction in Kanazawa are the ancient castle, which in recent years was reconstructed by ancient building techniques (see below) and the Castle Gardens which during the Sakura blossom season are just a magnificent view that should not be missed.



The reconstructed castle would be a very interesting place for craftsmen, wood artists and carpenters to visit. This is because the reconstruction was done in traditional ways: the walls are layers of bamboo and clay, the timber structure is wood joinery without nails or steel, it looks like most of the timber was grown in Japan (I think that same of the first floor timber was imported from America and the flooring boards are nailed with modern screws). The building itself is huge – very impressive for such a reconstruction work. It looks like most of the garden and buildings are not original – probably were burnt down – and reconstructed. You could see some ruins of thee original towers and walls.