Hello friends! This week’s post is a bit late, and next week will probably come late as well…

However, whenever I delay something, there’s always good reason! I have had a packed week, and I made another video below for you all to enjoy.  The week started on Sunday with a little trip around Kanazawa with my host mother, Miki-san.  She took me to see Kanazawa Castle and an art museum (check out the video below for everything I’m describing!).  I then got to see the traditional Higashi Chaya District, which features a lot of Ishikawa’s signature gold leaf products.  The video then skips to Thursday night Sushi, including a neat conveyor belt system, which feeds the guests.

Before I get to describing the remainder of the video, I’ll give the brief rundown on the part of the week not in the video.  Tuesday, I got to try my hand at crafting Wagashi, which are tasty Japanese rice sweets, usually eaten with tea.  Wednesday, I visited Kanazawa University for the first time, and my group held another English Table for the KU students to practice their English.  I am really enjoying meeting new friends there and understanding their lives, while simultaneously helping them with English.

I returned to KU on Saturday for an event hosted by my new Japanese friends, and I got to do some Japanese Calligraphy (書道) and make Temakizushi.  After a slight burst of confidence, I tried Natto for the first time.  Natto is quite the notorious food in Japan, and many people absolutely hate it, but I thought it was alright.  On the way back, the bus to Kanazawa Station was packed, and there were seven of us…so we waited for the next bus.  The next bus wasn’t going to take us to the station, so we took a detour to Korinbo, the downtown/shopping/eating part of Kanazawa.  I mention this because I made some very awesome friends from PII, and I got to discussing life/business/ideas of mine with a brilliant HBS grad…that conversation may be my favorite part of this past week, but the video still has a FANTASTIC surprise to check out!

Last, but not least, the whole of PII took a trip to the Noto Peninsula! In the video, after the conveyor belt sushi, the Noto trip begins.  You’ll see the details in the video, but some of the activities included visiting the beach, shrines and temples, various museums, an aquarium, a market, traditional salt farm, terraced rice hills, and one of Japan’s nicest 旅館 (Ryokan, Japanese-style hotel), named Kagaya.  Unfortunately, I do not have any videos of dinner, but I did happen to win a contest by eating a banana the quickest, in front of the whole staff and PII (senseis included).  I also loved Kagaya’s Onsen, and it had a beautiful view of the Japan Sea, as well as distant, foggy mountains.  Lastly, i wanted to do a voice over of the video, but time was short this week, and I am still learning to make videos.  Maybe sometime in the future I will do a video with my voice…but for now, please enjoy some shots from the past week!

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO!