Hi everyone, in this entry I would like to tell you how we spent our first days in Kanazawa and how the settling in process is progressing. As I told you the last time, the first days were extremely exciting and demanding. Now, some days later, we are happy to report some achievements.
Yesterday, our fridge and our washing machine were delivered and Niklas has bought a gas cooking field. Therefore, we are now able to use our kitchen properly and can finally start making our own food again. Until then, we had to buy meals from the conbini (= convenience store) nearby as we couldn’t store any food due to the lack of a fridge. The humidity is very high, so we have to store nearly everything in the fridge to avoid mould. Back in Germany, our Japanese teacher Yukiko did warn us that things get moldy very fast, therefore we hope that we are able to save our food by cooling everything.
After establishing the fridge, we went grocery shopping in the huge supermarket nearby (Aeon). It took us nearly 1.5 hours to finish the shopping! Some things were quite easy to find, such as vegetables or cleaning stuff. However, the most difficult task was to find pepper (we managed) and salt (we didn’t manage). Also, choosing soy sauce from over 50 different products when you are not able to read the labels was quite a challenge. Although we can read two different alphabets, most of the labels are written in Kanji signs (we only now few of them) and so we are not really able to identify in detail what they say. It was a little bit difficult to stay motivated and afterwards we were very tired! Let’s hope that the next shopping trips will be a little bit easier for us.
In general, the easiest things are challenging in Japan. For example, our washing machine: all the labels are in Japanese and we weren’t able to identify the different functions on our own. Lucky for us, Professor Notsu was so kind to translate everything for us and to explain how to use it. This applies for all our technical devices like the rice cooker, the microwave oven, the air conditioning and the gas control. Without his help, we would be lost!
Right now, we are waiting for the last pieces of furniture that we bought: a small dining table and 2 chairs, a desk and a sofa that can be used for sleeping (so, if you want to visit us, you will have a place to sleep - but, it’s not very large! :D). Most of them will arrive during the next week. We were lucky to get everything within a reasonable price range. I’m really looking forward to being a little bit more comfortable with our new furniture. :)
Our weekend in Kanazawa city
Luckily, we were able to use the weekend for exploring the city center of Kanazawa! In front of our flat, there is a bus station where a lot of busses run directly to the center and to the most important sights, which is really convenient. Riding by bus for the first time was a little adventure for me. Niklas remembered the process from his first visit and explained everything to me, so I didn’t embarrass myself too much. For example, you get your ticket from a machine when you enter and pay when you leave the bus. In Kanazawa, we’ve seen the main shopping area (Korinboh), explored an anime center (if there are any anime fans among you, I' sure you would be absolutely thrilled!) and went to the famous fish market. Kanazawa railway station is also a very impressive building. There, we went to the tourist office to get some information for a bus ticket (but of course you will only get one with a resident card…) and met some really nice staff that was quite happy to tell us all about their Germany experience.
Pedestrial street in Kanazawa
The impressive railway station building
Lunch menu in a steak restaurant
Today, we strolled through the Higashi-Chaya district, the old Geisha district of Kanazawa. There, you find the traditional wooden houses and feel like you have been transferred to a former century! There are lots of little craft shops where you can buy special leaf gold products, pottery (e.g. tea sets), special wooden hashi (chopsticks) and fabrics. In between you can find little tea shops where you can enjoy matcha tea and little restaurants. We had lunch in a special restaurant that was famous for the Ishikawa rice. It was a wonderful dish!
Like a movie set
The only blond person in this area…
Our lunch
In general, people are so friendly here! If you need help and ask someone, this person will do everything that your problem is solved. For example, we went to a typical Udon restaurant the other night and two Japanese guests showed us how to order properly and how the payment system worked when they realized that we had some trouble to understand everything.
If you are able to speak a little bit in Japanese, they are often very happy and are much more open. So I can only recommend to everyone who wants to come to Japan to learn some phrases. It really helps you a lot to deal with everything.
Now, we are preparing for the next week. Niklas will start working at the university while I have lots of plans and ideas I want to follow the next days. We will both keep you posted with a new post about our experiences in the following days.
Until then, take care and feel free to use the comment section below if you want to ask questions or want to know more on a special topic.