Japan: Kanazawa - racing the typhoon

When I arrived in Kanazawa in the evening the first thing I did was to go and book my train ticket to Kyoto for late the next day. Or at least I tried to, because all of the trains after 1:30 had been cancelled due to a forecast typhoon. This put a real cramp on my time in Kanazawa but on the plus side I discovered that Kenroku-en garden, which was one of the main reasons for me going there, was open that night and also had free entry for the next few days.

So instead of going straight to bed when I got to my hotel I walked to the gardens and joined the slow-moving mass of humanity that had for some reason had the same idea.

It really was very pretty all lit up at night.These two shots are of the side of Kanazawa castle and an advertisement that definitely stood out.

The next day I had enough time to go and see a temple that I'd really wanted to see and get to the gardens again to have a proper look in the daytime.

Myoryuji Temple is also commonly known as Ninjadera, or "Ninja Temple". Sadly It's not called this because ninjas actually lived there, but the real reason is just as good. The builders of the temple had constructed an impressive array of traps, secret passages and tricks to thwart any invaders, some of which were rather clever.

Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos inside the temple itself, but the things inside included a "trick" offertory box which could be a pit trap, another pit trap at the bottom of a short set of stairs, a place down behind some stairs where they could see the invaders coming down and spear them in the legs without being seen themselves, and secret stairways leading to other parts of the temple

They'd even created an optical illusion in one place: part of the top floor's ceiling appeared higher than it actually was, meaning that an enemy might well misjudge how much room they had to swing their weapon, unlike the defenders.

Kenroku-en and the surrounding area were beautiful during the day as well, with the cherry blossoms in Kanazawa being well and truly in full bloom.

Last but not least is the clock they had next to the station. It was cool because the "display" was actually made up of tiny water spouts, and it didn't just show the time.