Kanazawa

The visit to Kanazawa was started with a trip to a Shrine

We then stopped by Kanazawa castle

Look out for falling snow

the snow

A view back at the castle gates

Of course the main reason for coming to Kanazawa was to visit Kenrokuen in the winter so Emma could see it.

It is considered one of Japan's 3 perfect gardens, viewable in each of the four seasons

I have now been to Kenrokuen in all 5 seasons:
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Shit winter with no snow.

We left the garden and went past a shrine

I don't know about the polka dots, but you've got to cover the repair work with something I guess

Hand purifying station

Red gate walkway

An annex for the art museum

The Prefecture History Museum

Historical dog

Probably a sword

A shell and POW officer rations

Old adverts

festival masks

Samurai armor

with blue trim

swords on sticks

Kanazawa (which means swamp of gold, named so because someone put a potato in a fountain and gold flakes came off it) is famous for making gold leaf, and has a gold leaf museum.

Machines for hammering gold

Different types and thickness of leaf

A stack of sheets of leaf and the shavings off the edge when they are squared off

shining light through leaf of different thickness

a camera microscope that you can use to magnify the gold leaf (or the shiba inu on your mask) 

a screen with mucho gold leaf on it

 shrine with gold leaf

art with gold leaf

lacquer box with gold leaf 

gold leaf wall paper

a stack of gold leaf where the pieces get further apart the higher up the stack you go

viewing from the top down

An umbrella on the stairs dripping gold leaf, that cat has walked through, leaving little gold leaf paw prints all about the museum

in the men's room the cat has knocked over a vase with gold leaf in it, leaving more paw prints

colored leaf

a museum elsewhere had this statue that was partially leafed

The following morning it had been snowing, so I checked out, left my bag at the hotel and raced off to the garden again

It was snowing just a little bit

Emma didn't want to come, so I went by myself.
I think she was just depressed that today was her last full day in Japan,

it can't be that she just doesn't really like snow, or doesn't really like gardens?
I mean, she's not a monster...