Sakata

 I had pre booked a cruise ship excursion for the day because we had a lot of on board credit to use. This day we would be on a 6.5 hour tour "Mt Haguro and Zempo-Ji Shrine". We would be taking a tour bus to and from. 

Fun to watch the guide boats helping guide the ship into port.

There were a lot of school kids at the cruise port, not sure what they were doing. At every port there has been some type of greeting and or farewell with children, music, entertainment. I don't think these ports see many cruise ships so they go all out for them.

Our bus approaches the Torii Gates, entrance to the sacred temples and shrines. We are entering the Haguro Shrine ground area. It is one of 3 Holy Mountains of Dewa and the easiest one to access.

Of course it starts to pour rain when we arrive!

We walk through the woods passing small ancient shines.

Finally reaching the 5 story pagoda, built in 1372 without nails, recognized as a national treasure in 1966.

I think we then got back on the bus and went to a different entrance to see the Dewa Sanzan Shrine.

Dewa  Sanzan Shrine:

Then we wandered around the forested mountain viewing many more little shines.

Then it was time to meet up for lunch. Since Buddhist Monks are vegan we were served a fun vegan lunch. We liked all of it except the unidentifiable square of tan that we all were saving thinking it was desert, it was not!

Lots of rules for using the toilets here, ha,ha!

Back on the bus, next stop was an odd little museum, Chido Museum, think it was a filler to make trip longer! Best part was the beautiful grounds and the funky little miniatures museum.

Next stop was the ancient 5 story pagoda, originally built in 937.

Then a stair climb up to the Zenpoji Temple.

The purification trough to wash hands and mouth before approaching temple.

Zenpoji Temple

Area to write and leave wishes.

We returned to a fun local farewell at the cruise port! It had been a great day and a good ship sponsored tour.

Kanazawa

 We had a beautiful arrival sailing into Kanazawa. The port itself is in an industrial area though.

At most of the ports taxi's line up ready to take you where ever you want to go. They port makes it very easy for cruise passengers as there are English speaking helpers who tell the taxi driver where you want to go, then they hand you a card with the address of the cruise port to give a taxi driver for your return trip. So helpful when you don't speak the same language! You are never to touch the door of a taxi in Japan, the driver has a button that opens and closes the door for you. Today we started by taking a taxi to the geisha district. It is the neighborhood where the geisha entertain, including dance, art, theater, tea ceremonies. Today there are still a few tea houses along with some very lovely shops selling beautiful hand crafts and a lot of hand painted ceramics. We did purchase a beautiful small vase and a little soy sauce decanter. The shop owner even showed us a book she had showing the artists work who painted the pieces we purchased, how cool is that!

We saw the mailing delivered like this everywhere we went in Japan

These girls appeared to just be shopping dressed in kimonos, crazy tourists wanted pictures with them! We left the geisha district and headed to find the samurai district that had houses the samurai lived in. Samurai were the elite warriors, eventually when they were not needed as warriors they became administrators fostering the arts, theater, crafts and even tea ceremonies.

We walked through neighborhoods, passed a shrine, even a map but somehow we didn't find the samurai neighborhood, oh well! We walked along the pretty river to get to the Omicho Market.

Fun little vehicles on the streets.

We find the market and go inside to explore and find lunch.

We found a little Japanese curry place and took a seat at the bar that overlooks the chefs. It was all very confusing how to order, luckily a young couple sitting by us explained the process, you get basic curry then tell them all the different toppings you want, only easy if you speak Japanese! Dave had Katsu and veggies added to his, I became confused and just went with the straight up curry no add ons!

Then we headed off walking to find Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen Gardens.

The garden areas were beautiful, tea houses doted the park, huge ancient tress, and peaceful water areas. Occasionally we would see women strolling around the gardens in traditional kimonos.

We the made our way down to a street along the park fond a taxi, handed him our card with the ship address that the taxi helper at the port gave us and returned to the ship. Cabs all take credit cards making them very easy to use.  We absolutely loved our day in beautiful Kanazawa.

Tonight's dinner menu offered Holland's famous split pea soup for a starter, of course I had to have that, along with the Holland's chocolate tulip for dessert, yum!