Day 10’s itinerary would be based around Toyama, and we’d be visiting up to six places: Matsukawa Park => Toyama Castle => Toyama Glass Art Museum => Ikeda Yasubei Shoten => Starbucks @ Kansui Park => Toyama Tower Observatory. The city is about 60km away from Kanazawa in a North-Easterly direction. We had the 5 Day JR Pass, and as it turned out, included rides on the Shinkansen between Kanazawa and Toyama was included in the cost of the pass. This was also the two kids’ first ride on the Shinkansen, so more the reason why we were going to avail ourselves of it.
The earlier weather forecast at Toyama was similar to Kanazawa’s: around 0 degree C, with a mix of snow and rain. As it turned out, the weather was fairly tolerable after all: there wasn’t rain or snowfall when we arrived in Toyama after a short 23 min Shinkansen ride. That said, snow on the ground was melting, so there was a fair bit of icy water sludge everywhere we walked.
Our first two stops: Toyama Castle and Matsukawa Park, which are in the same location: in that the Castle is inside the park. The distance from JR Toyama Station to park is actually quite walkable, but we took a Tram No. 4 for a couple of stops to bring us closer to the edge of the park. The castle is rebuilt and fairly small, and houses a historical museum which required admission fees: so we were happy to just explore the castle grounds. Like many of the places we’ve visited yesterday, there were barely any tourists around – and we saw at most the occasional local visiting the area. The snow in the park and castle ground was fairly undisturbed and almost a foot deep, which in turn provided the kids with plenty of opportunities to have their snow fights!
And we were also lucky enough to spot a few winter cherry blossom trees in bloom. That certainly made the wife very happy, since the Sakura season is well-over.
Continued in the next post!