Kanazawa November 2025

One of the main reasons we applied to extend our stay in Japan until December, is so that we could enjoy one more autumn season. We had heard that Kenrokuen Garden (one of the Top 3 gardens in Japan) was beautiful in the fall so we decided to make Kanazawa one of our last trips.

Kanazawa is known as the "little Kyoto", but we were surprised to find it is not "little" at all. It's quite a big city. It has a feeling of both modern and old all wrapped in one.

We took the Shinkansen from Tokyo (our favorite way to travel in Japan). The Kanazawa train station has some very unique architecture.

At the station we were able to get on a Loop Bus that made stops at many of the sites in the city. Our first stop was Higashi Chaya, a very nicely preserved Edo period district. It is also an area where there are many tea rooms and Geisha working there. We saw a women dressed in Geisha clothing running down one of the side streets - she must have been late to something. (Since it's not polite, we didn't take a picture of her.) But we loved wandering around this area - it really felt like you were going back to a different time in Japan.

This is a lovely riverwalk just outside of the Higashi Chaya district. We learned when we visited the Kimono Museum (see below) that the silk fabric is washed in this river as part of the traditional process to rinse out the glue used to protect the paint colors when the background of the fabric is being died.

We jumped back on the bus and headed to the Kaga-Yuzen Kimomo Museum. In this area they are known for painting on silk in order to make beautiful kimonos. It was so interesting to learn about the process and see some of the kimonos. They also used the technique to paint other things. I thought about getting a painting, but they were all very expensive!

They offered a painting experience where you could paint a towel or a bag, but I opted to just do the photo shoot and pretend to paint!

Not far from the museum is the famous Kenrokuen Garden. The weather was off and on rain while we were there, but it did not effect our enjoyment one bit. I can see why that garden is Top 3! I don't know quite the right words to describe it - beautiful, peaceful, natural, harmonious. It was pleasure to see it!

This is one of the oldest fountains in Japan. It is created from the water pressure coming from the lake above it. Near the fountain is a picture of a postcard from a long time ago. It's amazing to think of how long people have been enjoying this fountain.

The Christmas tree shaped strings around the trees are part of the process to winterize the garden. Kanazawa gets a TON of snow because it's so close to the Sea of Japan. The strings are attached to the branches to help hold them up. We watched some workers placing the string and it's quite the process. One guy does nothing but stand with a plumb bob to make sure the tension is even and the center pole is straight.

Notice the garden workers in these three pictures. Some of them had umbrella hats! And, we saw a couple of guys sweeping the stream?!

I took too many pictures - I just couldn't help it. But, although pictures are nice, I can never seem to capture the view I'm seeing.

We spent several hours in the garden and then walked a short distance to see the Kanazawa Castle park area. The main castle is no longer standing. They do have some of the gates preserved and they are currently rebuilding the palace that was once there. There was an interesting video of the process to rebuild the palace. They are using all of the old school Japanese building techniques (without using nails or screws). It looks super time consuming.

The moat was no longer filled with water, but it was still very pretty. And the gardens around the castle area were also really nice.

We decided to walk to get dinner since the bus was always so crowded. It wasn't a bad walk, but by the time we arrived at the Omicho Market area we were starving. Omicho is like a giant covered Farmer's Market. Before I saw the signs saying "No Pictures" I had already taken a few - oops.

Unfortunately, we arrived too late for lunch and too early for dinner. We walked around a bit and then decided to eat dessert first - stopped in at a Mister Donut!

When the dinner hour finally arrived, we chose a very small, local sushi restaurant. It was owned by a man who told us he had been making sushi for 50 years! The menu was a "set course" of 7 plates of sushi that he had pre-selected that day. Happily every plate was good! Here is a picture of just one of the 7 plates.

On our way back to Tokyo we realized its possible to get on and off the Shinkansen at stations along the way. So we opted make a stop at Karuizawa. There is a famous pond there called Kumobaike that has stunning fall colors.

This turned out to be such a wonderful day - the weather was much improved from the rain the day before. It was crisp, but sunny - a PERFECT fall day. To get from the train station to the pond you can walk a couple of miles, or take a bus, or you can rent bikes! We opted for ebikes and it was such a good call.

We rode on the backroads to avoid traffic. First to the pond and then to the old section of town (Kyu-Karuizawa) to get lunch. Even the lunch spot had nice fall colors.