Back in touch and back in Kanazawa. I did manage to go up the peninsular, spending two nights in Wajima and one in Hakui. I have to admit the I didn't do a whole lot while I was up there but I went for a nice walk along the coast and got to see lots of nice scenery.
I travelled up on Thursday taking the Thunderbird to Wakura Onsen and then a bus from there to Wajima. I had some trouble finding places to stay in Wajima as it turns out I had stumbled into a festival on that weekend and most places were full. In the end I stayed in two different minshuku for two nights, then left around midday Saturday taking a bus through some interesting countryside to a place I forget the name of on the East coast (Always to be known to me as "Hatted-'t' strange tree thingumyjig") from where I could take the Noto railroad down that coast.
I had some time to spare there before the next train so I wondered around and found an enexpected but very nice park on one of the headlands. After wondering around that for some time I headed back to get the train (Which was made that little bit stranger by the fact the level-crossing gates played greensleves).
The railway gave some impressive views of the countrside and coastline of the east coast, but took longer than expected. I changed back to the JR line at Nanao, but since it was getting late and I had yet to find a place to stay I didn't go all the way back to Kanazawa that night but stopped off in Hakui instead. In the morning I visited the rather strange "Cosmo Isle" that they have there which is a very odd dome shaped building housing a strage space/ufo museum, before heading back to Kanazawa.
I got myself two nights in a hotel here in Kanazawa so I'll try to work out later today where I'm going to head off to tommorow. I'm considering going to Fukui and from there to a temple where you can spend the night, but it's a little out of the way and I'm not sure if it's worth it. If I don't do that I may well head straight on down to Osaka and start exploring the southern end of the country. I'll tell you more about what I'm going to do once I've had another look over the maps and guides later today.
Posted by Haifisch at April 7, 2003 03:46 AMI was just wondering, how is Japan getting on with the SARS virus and if youv'e had any encounters with it...
Seems like your having a good time!
John
Posted by: John at April 8, 2003 11:04 AMWell as yet I don't believe it's got to Japan yet. Though they are getting nervous and one report I read said the Japanese government was talking about asking the prefectures to prepare plans for an outbreak. (If this is a sign of Japanese buerocracy or just that they're not that nervous I'm not that sure). And since it isn't in Japan, no I haven't encountered it.
Posted by: Haifisch at April 8, 2003 12:08 PM