Another fairly relaxing day today. This is the second such day on this holiday, and feels quite alien to us. Hopefully we wont be making this a habit. Who the hell wants to relax on a holiday?! That's not how it's done.

We were in Gifu for a single night. It wasn't even originally on the itinerary. I didn't even really know there was a Gifu city. I always knew it just as a prefecture, since the only time we've been there is to visit Takayama and Shirakawa-go.

But, as it turns out, Gifu city from what we saw is a relatively nice place. Given a few more days I'm sure there would have been much more to explore. There are some old historically maintained residential districts, and there is a variety of other attractions, such as the cormorant fishing.

The city seems very proud of their cormorant fishing heritage. Even the cities official manhole cover is designed around the cormorant fishing theme.
Cormorant fishing, from what I can gather has been going on, unchanged for around 1300 years. No doubt the tradition is maintained in the present day for the tourism benefits, rather than the tasty fish, but nevertheless, it is still a thing.
We're currently in the wrong season for cormorant fishing, which runs from mid May to October, so it wasn't an option for us, but I would have liked to see it, just to see what the fuss was all about.

Cormorant fishing, crudely put, is the ancient art of tying a rope to a bird, throwing the bird in the water and letting it dive down to get fish. When the bird surfaces with the fish, you take the fish away from the bird, and repeat the process. I'm sure there is a little more art and ceremony to it than that, and there is a fire lantern lit to attract the fish, but that seems like the basic idea. There is a detailed description here if you're interested.

Our first Toyoko Inn visit of the trip didn't disappoint. Practically identical to each of the other Toyoko Inn visits we've had on previous trips, this is by no means a bad thing. Breakfast is complimentary, and very substantial, consisting of coffee, tea, juice, rice balls, salad, pickles, potato salad, miso soup, yakisoba (fried noodles) and breads. We've got 2 more Toyoko Inn stays in the remainder of this trip, as single nights in Toyama and Yokohama, so it will be interesting to see how they stack up.

Long train rides are generally covered in Japan in the comfort and speed of a Shinkansen. for today's journey however, this wasn't possible. Boarding a local train at Gifu station, we made the long and slow 160 minute journey North on a limited express local train, through some admittedly very pretty countryside, to Kanazawa station.

It is interesting to view the change in the Sakura bloom as we moved North. Around Gifu, the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom. Travelling North however was a little reminiscent of traveling back in time by a few days. Cherry blossom trees started out in full bloom when we set out, but were still budding, or only just started opening, when we arrived in Kanazawa. There are a few trees around Kanazawa station out in full bloom, but from what we can see, most are still just opening now.

Once we got off the train we understood why. Cold. The coldest we've felt on this trip. I actually had to put on my jacket for the first time in days.

Finding the hotel was simple. 5 minutes walk from the hotel, we walked there, introduced ourselves and dropped the bags behind the counter, and set off back to the station for lunch. We went the the restaurant floor of the shopping arcade next to Kanazawa station, which can only be described as super crowded and with nothing overly appealing, we opted for an ome rice (omelette rice) restaurant, which was satisfying but forgettable, before retiring to the hotel for afternoon naps.

The rest of the afternoon was spent napping and generally relaxing to get some energy back. Veronica, Angela and Isabelle went across to the "East Building" of our hotel for an onsen, which is Japanese for uncomfortably super heated bath with strangers. Some people love them, and if it were a real onsen using hot spring water I probably would have given it a try, but having a really hot tap water bath, naked, with a bunch of other guys is not my idea of a good time.

Originally on our agenda I had planned to go to Takada castle, in the city of Joetsu, on Tuesday. This castle is about an hour's train ride away, and is supposedly one of the best cherry blossom viewing locations in the entire country. In the castle grounds is a mini festival, and a cherry blossom illumination thing happening too.
Tuesday however, is supposed to be pouring rain all day, so we're going to bump this little adventure up to tomorrow, probably will a billion or so other people. Yes it will probably be crowded, but at least we'll be able to say we've seen it.
Tuesday then, may be the day we get on a train and head for Takayama, or just do the Kanazawa city bus loop. Got all day tomorrow to plan for that though. Plenty of time.