Ohayou
December 2022
The city of Kanazawa is located on the west coast of Japan, at the height of Tokyo, in the center of the great island of Honshū. She is sometimes called “Little Kyoto” and she deserves it.
It was the second city I discovered in Japan during my first trip in June 2018, that’s where I definitely fell in love with Japan.
I arrived at the end of the day, the apartment I had rented was beautiful, much too big for me, but located in the heart of a purely Japanese district just minutes from the old pleasure district, name that was given to the neighborhood where the Geishas practiced.
There are still some professional geisha in Kanazawa. I was walking around and had the chance to see one coming out of a huge limousine. Around her, it is as if time had stopped, everyone around me, including Japanese, was overwhelmed by the incredible grace and impressive majesty of this woman. It only lasted a few moments, she quickly disappeared in a tea house in the Higashiyama district, but it was really magical. Like the cherry blossom, it lasts only a moment, this sublime impermanence is a fundamental element of Japanese culture.
In my apartment I am welcomed by a young French woman who explains for an hour what you need to know about Kanazawa. I follow his advice and I go on foot in the Nagamachi district, near the Saigawa river, about forty minutes walk, my apartment is near the other Kanazawa river, the Asano. Nagamachi is the heart of the action in the old town and when I get there, I realize it’s not going to be easy. There are bars and restaurants everywhere and a crazy world.
It’s going rather badly, I get refused entry in several restaurants and I start to think that outside of Tokyo I face a kind of anti-Western racism that I did not expect. In fact, it is not the case, sometimes I am refused entry because the restaurant is really full, but also sometimes because no one speaks English and that all menus are in Japanese, so impossible to explain what we can eat. This is a situation that makes the Japanese very uncomfortable, so they prefer to refuse the client, but at that point I don’t know yet.
Finally, after a good hour of unsuccessful research where I have the opportunity to glimpse the beauty of the city, I enter an empty restaurant, that of Yasu.
In Japan, most of the time, even in big cities, you can’t see inside restaurants from outside, especially the Izakaya. There is light, translucent sliding panels, but no windows. What you eat is written on the outside in Japanese, so everything is mysterious for a gaijin like me who does not speak a word of the language. But I had already learned to open the sliding doors, to put my nose in the place to breathe the atmosphere and try my luck.
Yasu welcomes me with a big smile, makes me sign to sit at his bar Izakaya which has six seats and tells me something in Japanese that I do not understand. Yasu doesn’t speak English, except for a few words. The translation app got hot that night, I stayed over two hours in his restaurant, Yasu made me an absolutely delicious custom meal, he went to get me beers somewhere on the street and he showed me my first real sakes. Yasu became my friend that night, and he still is.
This week, I went to his new restaurant on the banks of the Saigawa River. I didn’t tell him, I wanted to surprise him. He recognized me immediately, after more than three years, he came to take me in his arms, which is exceptional for a Japanese, and he started crying. At his bar, two dumbfounded Japanese stop their dinner, look at the stage, smile and applaud!
This first dinner in Kanazawa at Yasu in 2018 had put me in confidence, it allowed me to discover the kindness and sensitivity of a Japanese, his curiosity also for the Westerners. I was therefore confident and motivated to discover Nagamachi with the desire to find a bar where to live a new experience. With the help of alcohol, I was more reckless; I had not yet seen anything, but that, I could not know.
There are people everywhere and there are bars everywhere, at street level but also upstairs, they are usually tiny, I even see one where there are only two places! The problem is that you almost never see the inside and it remains a bit intimidating. I find my happiness, a large bar with translucent windows, I see that there are people, but there is room, I go back.
When you enter a bar, restaurant, cafe or shop in Japan, you are greeted by loud い ら っ し ゃ い ま せ shouting from all the staff near the entrance. Sometimes it’s a bit scary because it sounds, but it’s just the way to welcome a customer in Japan.
いらっしゃいませ
Irashaimase – welcome.
Mari appears who runs this bar, the ラ ン プ, she welcomes me personally as she always does for important clients or gaijin like me. She offers me a place at the bar and makes it clear that I can ask her to drink. I order a 生 ビ ー ル, literally a raw or cold beer, at the press so Yasu taught me.
ランプ
Ranpu – lamp.生ビール
Namabirru – draft beer.
Mari asks a waitress to take care of my beer and she uses her translator to tell me that she will bring me someone who speaks English. I’m not very keen on having a conversation with a Westerner, but she comes back a minute later with a Japanese in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, and, very importantly, without socks. Takashi hates socks!
Takashi is reserved, like most Japanese men, but he speaks very good English and it’s really rare in Japan. He is a biologist, researcher at the University of Kanazawa, he worked in a laboratory in the United States, he plays Bach or Chopin whenever he meets a piano, and he hates socks!
Takashi will become my best friend! He will make me discover the culture, language, customs and particularities of Japan. For a week we will not leave each other and we will drink and eat a lot, starting always with the bar of Mari.
Mari also becomes my friend and Takashi has to play the role of interpreter permanently, which he does with great talent and kindness. The 金 沢 の チ ー ム was born in early summer 2018.
金沢のチーム
Kanazawa no chimmu – the Kanzawa team.
Kanazawa is not only a city of entertainment and friendships, it’s also a beautiful city that attracts more and more people, especially since there is a direct Shinkansen from Tokyo. It takes less than three hours to get there.
This week, after spending three years without them, I partied a lot with Mari and Takashi until late at night, I met many Japanese but I also took the time to review the places I like.
