Kanazawa - 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. The second best freshly baked melon-pan ice cream in the world? And kids get sick on vacations sometimes

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and Melonpan Ice Cream Sandwiches

Trip Diary Day 7 - 4 April 2019

Check out Episode 5 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

It became part of our Kanazawa morning routine, all 3 mornings so far, to catch a bus to Kanazawa Station and then go to either Blue Monday or Curio. Or both. This morning we toss routine out the window and go to to Boulangerie Francoise Donq. At Kanazawa Station. On our way to Blue Monday. Donq is one of those French / Japanese franchise bread and patisserie shops you see in railway stations, road side stops and shopping centres in Japan. They are, for franchises, invariably awesome. We buy 1900 Yen worth of pastries to take-away. I wonder what Donq means. I think, in French, donc means therefore. Boulangerie Francoise Therefore… many pastries? Good eating? One of life’s little mysteries perhaps. I walk away singing my new favourite song, Donq. It goes, “Don Donq, don don da don don Donq”. It gets repeated until someone says “Dad! Stop!”.

Blue Monday

As we walk out of the station we pass a giant wooden gate that resembles a giant Torii gate. I can’t shake the feeling that the resemblance isn’t coincidental. Torii gates symbolise the passing from the mundane through to the sacred. We’re going for coffee at Blue Monday. The metaphor is appropriate I think.

I don’t know whether this is second breakfast or third but we had 2 cappuccinos, 1 iced latte, 1 OJ, and two serves of toast. I finally get up the courage to ask the owners name. “Kunieda”, he says. He gives me his card. I give him mine. The exchange of business cards is very serious in Japan. It has its own etiquette. I actually had cards printed for this trip just so I had some thing to exchange when offered. It truly is an honour to receive a business card from people like Kunieda. He looked up my web page while we had our coffees. Later I find he has followed me on Instagram as well. Hi Kunieda. It was an honour to drink your coffee and speak with you. Thank you.

The agenda for the day was art. Specifically art at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. We walk to try and find a bus to take us somewhere close to the museum. We buy a water from a vending machine. Partly because we’re thirsty and partly because was Brandy wanted to use the vending machine. Water is only 100 yen. What is with Japan and its reasonably priced things in vending machines? I’m used to ignoring vending machines in Australia because I know water will cost the price of a small car.

Nagamachi Samurai house district

After 20 minutes walk realise we’ve gone down the wrong street. About the same distance we would have caught the bus if we’d gone in the right direction. We decide to keep walking and then realise that we are close to the Nagamachi Samurai house district. We walk up the lovely old street with canals. I can’t see any of the thatched roofs we were expecting. I really had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t researched this area much. Nice houses and streets though. There was a flowering sakura at the samurai toilet. A samurai toilet is similar to a public toilet block elsewhere but it is in a samurai district. It is probably historically significant. We got to take a whiz in the same place the samurai used to whiz. Probably. As I said I hadn’t researched this area much.

We were slowly heading towards the museum. We were passing through the canal district near the centre of town so we dropped into Sanjo, the restaurant with helpful friendly owner from the night before, to see if we could make a reservation tonight. He wanted to be proactive and actually have dinner organised for a change. He was even more helpful and friendly this time but unfortunately Sanjo is booked out for tonight. He gave me a map and then hand wrote a couple of recommendations for us to try. Seriously, if you’ve never been to Japan you won’t understand just how friendly and hospitable many people are.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art

At the museum there are two tickets for the two sections of the museum. We buy the ticket that includes the Swimming Pool exhibition. 720 yen for both adults. Free for the kids. Not expensive at all. Leave bags at reception ticket area. It was hot and stuffy in the museum even though it is bright open. Probably because it is bright and open. It is a glasshouse. The Swimming Pool is outside in a central courtyard. The Swimming Pool is an artwork by Leandro Erlich. It is, as the name suggests, a swimming pool. Or it gives the illusion of being a swimming pool. From above it looks like you’re looking into a deep swimming pool but it is only a layer water 10 cm deep on top of layer of clear perspex leaving and empty void below. You can go down into the void or peer from above. The illusion is very effective and quite well done. The kids were intrigued. They were a little hesitant to go down underneath but they did. Michelle went up top to take photos. The kids were swinging on the pool ladder below only to be told by the attendant to stop. Everybody else seemed to hang from the ladder with impunity. The attendants seem paranoid about little kids in this museum. We were constantly warned to make sure that they don’t touch anything. There were other delightfully weird exhibits. We see the black hole - a big black dot painted on a wall. We watched an installation that uses videos of common household objects connected to electric guitars to make music synchronised with noise from drills, washing machines and other household appliances. It was very cool. Outside there was a coloured spiral plastic walk through thing. We climb a metal climbing art thing. We sit on chrome donut seats. We’ve hit peak modern. Time to go.

World’s Second Best Freshly Bake Melon-pan Ice Cream Sandwich

Way back in 2015 we visited Miyajima Island near Hiroshima. Top spot, scenic, historic, lots of deer, great coffee, and melon-pan ice cream sandwiches. I’ve been craving one ever since. So you can imagine my excitement when we found a melonpan ice cream sandwich shop in Kanazawa. Right near the museum. I’ve since found it is is called the World's Second Best Freshly Baked Melon-Pan Ice Cream shop. Melonpan is a sweet bun with a soft doughy interior and a crispy outer shell. They resemble a melon or a rock melon. The buns are sweet and tasty but they are taken to a higher level when you cut it in half and load it up with ice cream. A sandwich. I like vanilla but almost any flavour ice cream is available. Ours were 350 yen (about AU$4) each but if you wanted to go the full on indulgent decadent route you could have one with gold leaf for 1000 yen. These melonpan were delicious. If this was second best my newest life goal is to find the World’s Best Freshly Baked Melon-pan Ice Cream shop.

Rakugan Moroeya - Japanese confectionery - Samurai Temple

Myouryuji Ninja Temple is near the Lawson near our apartment. We’d gone past every day not realising it was so close to where we were staying. There were signs pointing the temple I hadn’t noticed before because I was always distracted by the temple to consumerism - Lawson. Once we arrived we remembered someone telling us a couple of days ago that we’d need a reservation. Tours run hourly (Japanese language only) so you need a reservation for an available slot. We discovered you can make a reservation there and were told to go to door with an intercom and press the button. A voice from the intercom said, “How many people?”
“4. 2 adults and 2 children.”
”How old are the children?”
We lie just in case Brandy is considered too young. “6 and 8.” He is one of the reasons we came to the ninja temple after all. 5 year olds love ninjas.
”Sorry no elementary school children” says the voice from the intercom. What the fuck? Brandy was not impressed. So we leave and see a couple of cats in a noisy howling standoff in the yard of the house next to the temple. Thankfully a couple of feral cats howling at each other is enough for a couple of kids to get over the disappointment of missing out on the ninja temple.

Nishi Chaya West Geisha District

Kanazawa, Japan

Across the main road from the temple is the Nishi Chaya West Geisha District. This is the smallest of the three geisha districts. While it was closer to where we were staying it is a little out of the way from the old centre so it was quieter and not as many tour groups. I counted exactly zero tour groups in fact. One cute quiet street. There’s a traditional Japanese sweet shop at the end of the street - Moroeya Rakugan Japanese confectionery. Lovely sweet little rice flour sugar candies. Brandy wants a box because, as he once declared, sugar is his favourite food. 540 yen for a box of about 10 candies.

Takaji Korinbo

Nishi Chaya isn’t far from the bridge back across the river to the main part of town so when went back into town to the restaurant helpful guy from Sanjo recommended - Takaji Korinbo. We arrived at 4.50. Early because both kids are feeling well so we want to eat early. After an amusing exchange about time, numbers, reservations the guy tells us to come back at 5 when they open. I show him the time and he laughs and says yes 10 minutes. He thought it was a lot earlier. We wait outside and right on 5 he comes back out to us and welcomes us in. We thought Takaji was a yakitori place but it seems to be an Izakaya and Japanese BBQ. That’s a no worries from me mate. There is no way I could be disappointed with Japanese BBQ. So we got beef, waygu, pork and chicken with some green peppers and shitake mushrooms for the BBQ. And a grilled mackerel. We also had a starter of tofu and bamboo shoots. And a Suntory beer to wash it all down. We had counter seats. A box of red hot charcoal was placed in front of me and I cook. Everything is delicious and very tender. The fish was great too. We were all done by 6. 7800 yen A few other customers had arrived so it was starting to get busy by the time we left. Interestingly a few solo customers had BBQ at the counter too. 7800 yen.

There’s a large intersection on the main street that has a conbini on at least three of the four corners so we chose the Lawson corner. They had Japanese Frosties. Japanese Frosties are like Frosties from home except we buy them in Japan. Cereal for breakfast again, yay! This made me inordinately happy. Then it was a bus home from there. Shower Brandy - we have to take these moments when we can. Georgia had a mild temperature. She woke up dreaming and was a little disoriented. We gave her some kid’s Panadol.

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Check out Episode 5 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

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