terra-machi

A few days ago I went to Apita with Remy. Apita is this SUPER-giant-MEGA-store, a little bit outside of the downtown area. It's the size of a mall and sells everything from groceries, to furniture, to clothes. Remy wanted to buy some new sheets and a pillow... Maybe he's in a home-decor phase. From the way everyone talks about Apita, it seemed very far, but really it was only about 30 minutes to get there on foot.

Once there, we wandered around like lost puppies in the game section. Man, Japan has some cool video games! While Remy was shopping, I found a cool garbage can that says: "Merci. Keeping tidy to my heart is happy". And after he checked out we began searching for the correct entrance. This place was like a maze and while wandering around, I almost bought a couch. See, my apartment is japanese style now, which means that I sit and sleep on the floor. Anyway, the couch was this cool, orange colour and the modernist style you might have found in airport waiting rooms in the 70s. I decided against it because we'd have to carry it home.

Finally we found the correct exit and we started our journey home. I kept wanting to take shortcuts and eventually we found ourselves in Terra-machi, the temple district. It was a really good way home. Little streams and canals run between buildings and at every turn there's either an enormous temple or a graveyard.
some history: Lord Maeda, the fuedal ruler of Kanazawa built walls around the city and set up a temple district outside the main gate. This area was the first defense against attacks. It would have been very bad karma to attack a temple, so while the army stalls in front of Terra-machi to debate, the city can get ready for the battle. And even then, they'd still have to get past Ninja-Dera, the second line of defense, a temple full of pit-falls, secret entrances, and highly-trained troops.