Tony refused to leave our island paradise. The lawns around his yurt needed maintaining and he imagined a little kayak business out front. However, my credit card was starting to mould up from the humidity so we were Kanazawa bound. The town bus, ferry, two local trains and the bullet were a breeze in reverse, 5 hours later we arrived. 

The 16th floor of the Kanazawa sky hotel was luxury, we had a bed (not a tatami mat), we had a buffet (not a charcoal grill), we had 6 floors of shopping below us including a food court (not a 20 minute walk to a food stall) and we had a lobby bar with staggering views (not a vending machine). But the best bit by a long shot is the ‘loop bus’ because we couldn’t get lost. With map in hand and a couple of coins, we spent a couple of days exploring. 

In between being professional tourista’s, Kanazawa threw us a couple of gems. The annual Kanazawa ukulele festival was a great find. Turn after turn of Japanese groups, playing ukulele and doing the hula in full island get up. All turns began with the Japanese version of the pacific welcome ‘aroha’. The second was the Kanazawa acapella competition. This meant 100’s of Japanese boy bands banging out American pop hits from every corner of the city for 2 days. With Karaoke as the national pastime here, there were some great pipes.

The funniest by a long shot though was the Ninja temple. Ninja’s I now realise were very small…Tony is not. 5 levels over 2 floors, 26 hidden staircases, and many trap doors and pit falls were fascinating for our little japanese tour group and myself. Tony however, kept banging his head on the low studs and getting his considerable bulk stuck in the narrow staircases, on the plus side however he was never going to fall down ninja size trap doors or pitfalls. Sadly a ninja he will never be!