Gold for the Jacksons

No, it's not the Olympics yet but it was gold for the Jacksons today! In Kanazawa, the gold capital of Japan, we saw gold, bought gold, learnt about gold, got creative with gold, used gold lotion and even ate gold...that's right we ate a piece of gold leaf!

We went to a museum was really interesting and had a great video about how gold leaf is made. It also had a fascinating hands on section where we could feel the weight of different metals and explore different materials with a very powerful magnifying glass (it is amazing what your hair looks like magnified - like spaghetti!). We stumbled upon a second gold museum and this one allowed you to design and make your own gold chopsticks. Mum and I really enjoyed making the chopsticks by stickytaping the design and then coating it in gold leaf. We were really happy with the finished product. The instructor was such a character and knew a few English phrases which he liked to repeat - okay okay. It was great fun!  

The golden chopsticks we made

We drank gold in our tea!

We have really enjoyed exploring the 'small town' of Kanazawa (Dad told us is was a small town...it is certainly not small! Houses, shops and people everywhere, like everywhere in Japan! A very lovely place - so well set up for travellers with a great hop on hop off bus and maps all over the place). Here are some of the other things we've been up to the past couple of days...

We travelled in style aboard the Shinkansen!

Playing Settlers of Catan on the Shinkansen

I was excited to be able to assist our travels by reading the Japanese sign to find the right place to board the next train. Otherwise we would have been at the opposite end to where we were supposed to be! Our train was called the Sandaabaado (Thunderbird).

We went to a local market...there was lots of seafood!

We've been enjoying wearing the yukata provided at each of our hotels!

The beautiful Kenrokuen Garden. So lovely and green - it would be even more magical in Spring and Autumn!

The cool colour sculpture at the Modern Art Gallery - the colours changes when you walked through it...so cool!

We have been loving the food! We have been trying lots of different foods. The last two nights we tried some Indonesian and Korean food - both delicious!

Tonight we ran into a couple we met at the Frisbee World Championships (parents of another Australian)! They are doing a similar trip to us and we wondered if we'd see them.  It is so fun to bump into people you know! There are lots of frisbee people travelling around at the moment and they are usually wearing frisbee t-shirts or hats so we can recognise them. However all the frisbee people swapped shirts at the end of the of the tournament so you never really know where they are from!