Update through the end of June 2011

The next cool thing I did was rice field planting.

 We all started at the same time so it's crazy how fast the little old ladies were, they completely outstripped me and the high-schoolers that were all in the same field.

There I am.  A really cool thought is that I know a lot of the restaurants in Himi buy local rice so potential I have eaten rice that I planted.

Continuing right along with two of the coolest festivals I have ever been to.  First is the kenkayama matsuri which basically translates into the fighting floats festival.  Basically different teams have their own floats with telephone pole sized logs sticking out of the front of them.  Two teams then charge their floats at each other and collide the poles together.  I have no idea how a winner was picked but the whole battle process was pretty darn cool.  The pictures didn't turn out that great so I'm just going to show a short video of the craziness.

The next festival is called the hyakumangoku matsuri.  This festival is a reenactment of Lord Maeda Toshiie entering into Kanazawa Castle in 1583 so the participants are dressed in period costumes and parade around the city before ending at the castle.  Afterwards my friend Ryuichi and I explored around town for a little while until it got dark enough to go back to Kenrokuen Garden to see the light up.

And to finish up this post are a few pictures from a random yakiniku party we had in Masa's parking lot and a beautiful shot from a drive through the mountains. 

Ahhem...Long Time No See...2

Let's continue shall we?  Zack and I made it to Himi and began our more rural adventures. This is the May 1-4 portion of Zack's Golden Week visit.

First adventure was a festival in Takaoka.  It was a little rainy so they just stopped the giant floats right in the middle of the road and covered them with plastic.

When the rain died down.  They took the plastic off and started right back up.

On another day we went to Kanazawa, as that water sign shows.

The very cool Kanazawa train station.

Ninja Temple...like that wasn't going to happen.

Exploring the temple district I found a large stone frog. This picture is for my siblings, hopefully they weren't too young on our walks "to the animals" to remember another big stone frog.

Oyama Shrine with its unusual gate, which was designed by a Dutch architect using elements of European and Asian religious themes.

Kanazawa Castle

Kenrokuen is the famous garden in Kanazawa.  It's supposedly among the top three most beautiful gardens in Japan and I can believe it. 

On another day we went on a biking trip to explore Himi.  At the bottom of a hill we found a sign for castle ruins.  We didn't see anything particularly castle-like when we got to the top but there was a shrine in a glass box. 

Also, the view from the top was great.

On that same bike ride we saw mysterious steps that were too neat looking to pass up.

It led us to some old graves scattered about.

And of course, we couldn't miss the famous Himi clock.

There was Lion Dancing going on around town for the holidays.

At on of the parks there is a large statue.  I liked the hawk sitting on a hawk.  It's almost like he was catching a ride.

This is what rice fields look like before they've been planted. 

One of stops in Tokyo the day Zack left was Asakusa.

A completely random picture to end with.

In summary, Zack and I had a wonderfully fantastic time and saw way more than I thought possible for a week long vacation.  Having visitors gives me an excuse to get out there and see all the sights I wouldn't necessarily get to on my own.