Leaving Kanazawa, Headed for Tokyo

This is my last morning in Kanazawa. I packed a lot into yesterday and forgot that I was planning to take it easy. I started out with the breakfast buffet at the hotel, which has an interesting mix of Japanese and Western selections. One offering was a make-your-own sushi hand roll. You get a sheet of nori and place some sushi rice on it. Then you pick your toppings. Raw white fish, a little early in the day, but ok. Avocado, mushrooms, cucumber, mayo, wasabi—so far so good. Little shrimp, maybe raw? No, thank you. Then there are little dishes that contain tiny whole squid, about half the size of your little finger, that look like they expired in a pool of soy sauce, not on a bet.

Rolled it up, not bad for a beginner. They also have oden, which is fish cake in several forms, and daikon radish, slow simmered in a light dashi stock. Also wakame salad with glass noodles, pickled lotus root, and potato salad. 

I’ve put this off as long as I can. There are small containers of the infamous natto, bane of western travelers for many decades. If you are unfamiliar, natto is fermenter soy beans. You stir it with your chopsticks, and it gets sticky and forms filiments. I’m going to try it so you don’t have to. 

That was a big mistake. The taste is a bit like blue cheese, but not in a good way. And the texture—kind of like mucilage, also not in a good way. Unless you like slimy, funky things for breakfast, eschew it. 

I discovered that they have a cheap hop-on, hop-off bus that was going everywhere I wanted to see, so I hopped on. They have an amazing park that contains Kawazana Castle and one of the finest gardens in Japan. I’ve decided that I’m going to stop taking pictures of well-known landmarks, since if you are interested, much better pictures of these places are readily available on Google, like this one:

I was taking a breather in the gardens and stopped at a vending machine to get a bottle of water when I saw this. Some adolescent boys saw my interest and explained that it contained crab soup. Out of curiosity, I bought a can for about $1:50. It comes hot out of a machine that also serves cold drinks, go figure. Not bad, but I didn’t need hot soup as I was already schvitzing. The amiable lads took a picture with me and sent it by email.

The garden has a number of rustic tea houses overlooking ponds, where you take off your shoes and sit on tatami and have a bowl of matcha while looking at the ponds and trees.
 

I tried to enter a contemplative state but kept having thoughts like, “Do I need to do laundry, or can it wait a couple days? I don’t know anyone in Kanazawa, but my smalls are getting pretty funky” and “All this walking is making my thighs chafe; better get some ointment,” which led to thoughts about the time in court when I was testifying about someone needing to change their outlook and used the punchline of an old joke to make my point: “But as the old joke goes, if I could walk like that, I wouldn’t need the cornstarch.” This quip was met by utter silence in the court, and after a long pause, the judge made me tell the whole joke. If you too are unfamiliar with this bit of levity, just go to my website: http://www.oldunfunnydadjokes.com. 

(OK, here’s the actual joke. A tourist has been walking all day, and his thighs are painfully chaffed to the point that he is gingerly waddling around. He walks into a country store and tells the clerk his problem. “Ah, some cornstarch will fix that right up. Its in the back of the store; just walk this way.” The guy watches the clerk stride to the section where the cornstarch is kept and mutters, “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the damn cornstarch.”)

As an aside, its almost never a good idea to make jokes while testifying as an expert in court. You may get off a good one, and the judge and jury may howl with laughter. But inevitably, the lawyer cross-examining you will wait patiently until the laughter settles down and then ask you, “Doctor, do you think a case of manslaughter is a proper subject for levity? The rest of the day was like previous ones in Japan for me. Conveyor belt sushi, then a soak in the onsen followed by a Prime movie. My life in Japan is simple but complete. Right now I’m on the Shinkensen, almost entering Tokyo where I’ll stay for 3 nights, on to Kobe and thence to the airport and home.