Shirakawago and Kanazawa

The Miburo Dam, Japan's first and largest dam built with only stones and clay. Extremely controversial when it was first proposed because it displaced an entire village. Two 300 - 400 year old cherry trees were moved up the hill and amazingly, survived. The trees symbolized hope for the villagers, who reluctantly moved on. It was raining, so we took a photo, instead, of a school child's model of one of the trees in bloom.























A view of the UNESCO World Heritage village
of Shirakawago Gassho-zukuri, where some of the
homes displaced from the dam were relocated.
The wooden homes with steeped thatched roofs are 
designed to withstand heavy snow.

A close-up look at the ripening rice before crossing the suspension bridge over the river and on to our next stop.

On the bus Oka-san played a Discovery video of Sumo Wrestling.  We became intrigued by this ancient sport which relies heavily (pun intended) on ritual and tradition.  It helped that Jerry-san and I are reading Gail Tsugawa's book about Japan called Street of a Thousand Blossoms.  It's about two brothers before, during and after World War II, one of whom becomes a Noh mask-maker and the other a Sumo wrestler.  We highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to know more about the effects of the war on the residents of Tokyo.  (We had never heard about the horrific fire-bombing of Tokyo.)


We arrived in Oka-san's favorite city, Kanazawa, later in the day.  It didn't take long for us to find out why she loves it.  From the marvelous architecture of the Kanazawa Station with it's stylized Torii Gate to the view of the Pacific Ocean from our hotel to the teahouse district and the Kenrokuen Gardens - Kanazawa is exceptional.

Oka-san led us through the Kenrokuen (Garden of Six Attributes), one of the three finest traditional gardens in Japan.  Begun in 1676, its 25 acres include ponds, waterfalls, trees, flowers, bridges and stone walkways.  We were photographed on one of the bridges best known as ---well, the place where everyone takes pictures! We were lucky to be in the gardens at the same time as the workers busy with ladders and clippers.  Some of the trees are over 300 years old, and it's easy to see the source of their longevity.  All it takes is a lot of TLC.















The six attributes of a traditional garden can be found in the next photos:  extensiveness, manmade, antiquity, water, wide prospect and quiet seclusion.  Easy, right?  It only took the Kanazawa gardeners a bit over 300 years to achieve.