Currently the weather in this part of LA has been fairly predictable, overcast / foggy up until noon and then the sun blazes through, 75F give or take a few with a nice cooling breeze near the seafront.

However most of the 14th during the day was overcast and nothing actually grabbed our eye, which is unusual. None the less we headed for sushi at Hama Sushi for the 5pm – 7pm “earlybird” bar menu which had selected sushi, various other dishes, beers and wine all at a reduced fee. California rolls never tasted so good. A stroll along the beach front brought us upon a large crowd of people who were dancing to the beat of lots of random drums. All sorts of people and characters jumped out, it was a strange little moment on a fairly quiet evening.

The following day, after an early morning run and homemade breakfast, we once again explored some of the Venice canals. They are a great place to wander around whilst having a good nosy at the huge variety of houses on display, these must be worth a fortune! Luckily our host has a bicycle that we can use and this is probably the best way to see the local area, especially the beach path system for “Peds” and “Bikes” which is a great ride past Santa Monica, or in the opposite direction towards Manhatten beach. So while Helen is doing her yoga, Dave is cycling the beach paths enjoying the views and topping up the t-shirt tan!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We woke up to people using the washing areas, kitchen noise and the constant sound of rain. We were pretty relieved to know that we were moving upstairs to a quitter part of the guesthouse and it was also really comforting starting the day off with a good bowl of porridge. The rain was set for the day so we had to think about what we wanted to do that wouldn’t involved us getting absolutely soaked all day. Simon had a few ideas so we went along with those.

The first part of the day saw us walk up to the local fish market – around a fifth of the size of the one in Tokyo but it showcased it’s local famous crab – some of which had been freshly caught that day and were still clapping their claws together, others had been caught over a year ago and were seen as more of a delicacy. We were shocked to see that some crabs were on sale for up to 40,000 yen – somewhere around £300!!

After our little market experience we walked through the Kanazawa Castle grounds empty of tourists in the rain but you could still appreciated this beautiful site completed only in 2001 so it was very white and clean. Coming out of the grounds led us to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, a very minimal low to the ground glass-structured building. As we approached the gallery so did a bus load of school children, you really can’t avoid the school groups at any major tourist or art attraction over here. In the foyer they all lined up and listened intently to their teacher’s instructions, so we aimed to get a bit of a head start on the groups and darted into the gallery. The first group exhibition titled “Invisible reality” hosted works by Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor and Vik Muniz. Works by Muniz combined were a large collection of photographic prints showing injected bubble marks forming a pattern from re-constructed star-maps using NASA software. Each piece was a re-creation of the night sky-maps during key moments in time such as the fall of the Berlin wall. This was a pretty impressive piece of work.

The main exhibition was a collection of works by performance artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, think Honda car advertising and people dressed as a bear and a panda exploring Japan and other parts of the world. Quite humorous at times but also a little strange.

It was still raining when we left but had decided we would go to the local tourist exchange salon down town where they were holding classes in local craft. The craft we would learn was to make flowers out of fabric along with several other local ladies who were impressed and intrigued as to how we found out about the class. Namaste have a sheet that advertises what’s happening at the exchange salon so it was pretty easy for us to find. It was a really fun experience if a little surreal and we all walked out with a couple of bunches of flowers made from fabric and wire. Very cute, Dave was particularly good at this and showed off every little flower he made to a warm reception of cooing middle aged Japanese ladies impressed with his skill. ha ha!

Our next skill learning task was to go to a guitar shop and learn to play the shamisen a traditional Japanese instrument mostly played by Geisha. The family who run the workshop have been making this instrument for over a hundred years. We were led upstairs, had a powdered green tea and sweet and were instructed that we would be teaching ourselves. The video footage will describe the sound these instruments create. Helen was jamming out at various stages whilst Simon and Dave focused intently on get the correct notes. It was really funny and got us out of the rain for a short while. This was our last port of call before heading back via the packs eagles circling above a bridge over the river.

Later on we called Dave’s parents on Skype, bought discounted sushi from the supermarkets and planned a wee trip out for Dave’s birthday!! One more sleep to 27!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We started early with a Japanese style breakfast provided by our Minshuku. It was much nicer than we were anticipating having been warned the night before. There was a traditional Hoba-miso from the area which is a miso sauce cooked on a leaf with a few shitake mushrooms and spring onions on it. You leave it to cook over a candle flame and then add it to the sticky rice, this was very pleasant. Accompanying was some cold grilled salmon, cooked squash, green tea and soup. Perhaps not your ideal breakfast start to the day but it was well worth trying and we left feeling pretty satisfied.

The temperature dropped significantly today and was somewhere around the 5 degrees mark, so with a brisk walk up to the famous morning markets we took in some of the local sights and stopped for a few photography opportunities of local trade. We were disappointed though as it all seems very contrived and set up for tourists. It is mostly Japanese tourists who come to the area along with lot’s of school trips. So off load the tour buses and suddenly the town becomes alive, but perhaps not in the way we had hoped. The word “Tacky-ama” comes to mind. It wasn’t all bad though as we did come across a nice cafe where we helped to translate some tour-guide info for a Japanese chap and then went on to Takayama Jinya.

This temple is beautifully restored and did hold our attention for an hour or so along with the school groups and fellow tourist makers. We managed to overlook this though and took in the historic details throughout. Following on from the temple we had the Takayama hilltops in our sights with a castle ruin at the top. It’s a good little hike up hill and along the way there are further shrines and monuments as well as an empty children’s playground which seemed to capture our photographic imaginations. From here we walked up to the top for a short look out across Takayama before heading back down towards the rooftops and a further path lined with temples. Takayama holds so much history that it’s difficult to forget where you are.

Back at our Minshuku we had a chance to relax and take a breather before heading out to meet Kim and Ivan. This time we chose a cosy little Japanese pub with one chef and many bar-top kitsch accessories such as a fridge that is also a TV, dvd player and playstation!! Along with this he provided us with books all about Japanese food, what he could do for us, explained that we would have to buy a beer whilst apologising all the while for his poor english!! The food was fantastic, fortunately we were able to share most of it as there was so much, Helen had the hoba-miso again this time though it was 4 times the size and had loads of mushrooms with it!! Dave had the local beef dish called Hida Beef which was very very good, melt in the mouth good. The chef gave the ladies a Kirin beer postcard and some goodbye bananas with “please come again” and “thank you” written on them. Priceless!

So with one more night left we prepared for the next step of our train journey to Kanazawa. We would meet Kim and Ivan for the same train the next morning at 11am. A good night was had by all.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)