Mistakes were made.

Kanazawa station doesn’t have many options for breakfast. I was counting on going to Tully’s and getting a breakfast hot dog but it turns out they don’t open until 10am. My train was at 9:07am. I just went to the 7Eleven and grabbed a coffee and a melon pan. My sister said, “I bet it wasn’t as good as the one in Juso.” Ha.

Oh, I downed the coffee while standing in line waiting for the train because the whole trip is only 18 minutes. I really didn’t need to rush. 18 minutes is plenty to enjoy a melon pan and coffee.

Arriving so early meant I could actually get a morning set in Toyama. I went to a litlle bakery hoping to get some toast. THEY WERE OUT OF TOAST. (Turns out they just weren’t doing the toast during Golden Week.) I got a cold hot dog and cold hash browns. I could’ve gone to Mickey D’s. I even asked two businessmen who both had McCafe coffees about how the coffee was at a Japanese Mickey D’s and they said it was good. The bakery coffee was not as good as the coffee I get at my local Mickey D’s in Portland

The weather forecast called for thunderstorms but I headed out anyway. Went to the Loft to ask about the pen I’m looking for. I already found one silver Uniball Zento Signature for my sister but I kind of want the brass one but I’m probably going to have to order it online for twice the price. I’m OK with that. I keep looking for it because it’s kind of a fun quest.

Anyway, it was off to the castle (a reproduction of course). There’s a history museum inside the castle and lots of SE Asians inside (about a third of the patrons). A couple of Filipino families and a couple of Chinese-speaking families.

I also went to the art museum on the castle grounds which were a private collection that is now shown to the public. It had some very nice scrolls and screens.

I wish I could post the live photo of this. It was really coming down and it was also quite blustery.

I decided to walk the 15 minutes to the Glass Art museum and on the way there was a Daiei department store where I went to look for my pen. Of course, no dice. Everyone is pretty nice about it, though. They were also having a Hokkaido food fair and I looked through that as well.

I spent a couple of hours making my way through the Glass Art museum. It was pretty cool. I was kind of weirded out when the first exhibit was all by Dale Chihuly. I thought, I know that name. Born in Taco Town, I mean, Tacoma and got his MFA at RISD. Quit famous and did some interetsing work. Unfortunately I did see some signs requesting that you not post pictures online. I only took one photo anyway. Here’s one of the museum from the top floor though.

The next floor down was an exhibit by Jiri Suchi, an instructor from the Czech Republic who was about to move back to Europe. I kept seeing a guy standing around and thought, is he the guy or am I just being that Asian guy who thinks all white guys look alike? I finally asked him and it was him! He answered all my dumb questions about his art and I even got a selfie. I do not know why my eyes are closed and I was talking during the picture. I guess I never take selfies and I was a little nervous talking to an artist at his exhibition.

After seeing four floors of glass art, I was feeling a liitle off. I realized I hadn’t eaten any lunch and it was 2pm! I decided just to get a snack at the art museum. Brewing a cup of coffee and cutting a piece of cheesecake (who am I kidding, the pieces are pre-sliced) took them over 20 minutes. I think they just forgot about me.

Would anyone with any sense go across town to the beach on a day with thunderstorms and high wind warnings? Second question: do I have a lot of common sense?

There are fishing boats near the beach and I asked a guy walking around if anyone goes fishing in this weather and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Norm from Tokyo Lens has shamisen lessons and there’s a shop around here where he gets the shamisen he sells online. I decided to go take a look and walked 20 minutes in the wind and rain. My Wirecutter-recommended folding umbrella held up incredibly well. I guess you shouldn’t just walk to a store during Golden Week and expect much (I wasn’t expecting much, just messing around.) It was closed. That’s OK. I had to get my steps in (though I didn’t hit 15k today).

I got on the tram to head back to the station. The tram station was weird. The old station was a community space and the new waiting area just looked like a covered bus stop.

I’m embarrassed to say that when we got to the main train station I pushed my way through the people who seemed to be standing around thinking they weren’t getting off. I didn’t look back but they were probably all getting off but were being incredibly patient. I’m not sure.

I got my local EkiTag (an electronic stamp-collecting game) and headed to the hotel.

I had to juggle hotels at the last minute to see friends and I switched from an APA hotel to the JAL Hotel for two nights. I guess I splurged because it’s $283.91USD for two nights and I’m on the top floor. I think the APA hotel was going to be almost as expensive so I decided to just get a nice room. I’m sharing a wall with the elevator and I hear nothing, which means excellent construction. I have a Nespresso machine in my room and they gave me barley tea and two rice crackers.

I was busy writing this nonsense until I realized I’d better go get dinner. I told the guy at the front desk I wanted to try Zetteria (a local fast-food hamburger chain) and he said BUT YOU’RE IN TOYAMA so have some of our great fish!. I went to his suggestged spot, Toyama Sushi. There’s two next to each other and one has sushi on a track. I picked the non-track restaurant and waited in line for what felt like a long time because it was cold outside. It was worth it. Once again I thought I was spending a ton of money but dinner was only $35 USD!

I didn’t get much breakfast and had no real lunch so I ate two pieces of the sushi before I remembered to take a picture. Same with the white shrimp tempura. (So good.)

As I was leaving I asked the lady next to me if I could take a picture of hers since she got the same thing I ordered. She was taking pictures with her phone and I gook a quick pic. Then she got out her DSLR and said she had to get a good picture. Hahaha.

I was still hungry and I thought about BK and Zetteria. There were way more people at Burger King when I went by and almost nobody at the Zetteria but instead I went and bought sweets. Not one but TWO. A cake from Fujiya (and a ¥5 fork) and a financier from the German Bakery.

They packed the cake with a mini cold pack!

The cake wasn’t too sweet. The financier was a financier.

And oh boy, I forgot to look for something my sister said she wanted. I still have time.