Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [236]
Shinpuku (; 22-8133; sushi per piece from ¥150, sets ¥1000-2500; lunch & dinner, closed irregularly but mostly Wed) This tiny, assiduously local sushi shop serves fabulously fresh fish and seafood, and iwanori seaweed in the miso soup. Sets are a sure bet, and asa-ichi-don is a selection from the morning market. It’s on the main street, one block east of the Cosmo petrol station. There’s a picture menu.
SHOPPING
The asa-ichi (morning market; 8am-noon, closed 10th & 25th of month) is highly entertaining, though undeniably touristy. Some 200 fishwives ply their wares – seafood, crafts etc – with sass and humour that cuts across the language barrier. To find the market, walk north along the river from the Wajima Shikki Shiryōkan and turn right just before Iroha-bashi.
GETTING THERE & AWAY
Click here for information on Hokutetsu buses to Wajima (22-2314). Buses to Monzen (¥740, 35 minutes) leave every one to two hours.
Suzu & Noto-chō
0768
Heading east from central Wajima towards the end of the peninsula, you’ll pass the famous slivered dandan-batake (rice terraces) at Senmaida () before arriving in the coastal village of Sosogi (). After the Taira were defeated in 1185 (Click here), one of the few survivors, Taira Tokitada, was exiled to this region. The Tokikuni family, which claims descent from Tokitada, eventually divided into two clans and established separate family residences here, both now Important Cultural Properties. From Wajima, buses bound for Ushitsu stop in Sosogi (¥740, 40 minutes).
The first residence, Tokikuni-ke (Tokikuni Residence; 32-0075; adult/junior high-school student/high-school student ¥600/300/400; 8.30am-5pm daily Apr-Dec, Sat & Sun Jan-Mar), was built in 1590 in the style of the Kamakura period and has a meishō tei-en (famous garden). A few minutes’ walk away, Kami Tokikuni-ke (Upper Tokikuni Residence; 32-0171; adult/child ¥500/400; 8.30am-5.30pm Jul-Sep, to 5pm Oct-Jun), with its impressive thatched roof and elegant interior, was constructed early in the 19th century. Entry to either home includes a leaflet in English.
Several hiking trails are close by, and the rock formation mado-iwa (window rock) is about 1km up the coast, just offshore. In winter, look for nami-no-hana (flowers of the waves), masses of foam that form when waves gnash Sosogi’s rocky shore. Across from Mado-iwa Pocket Park, the well-kept, seven-room minshuku Yokoiwaya (32-0603; fax 32-0663; r per person with 2 meals from ¥8350) has welcomed guests for 150 years with comfortable rooms, onsen baths and outstanding seafood dinners; in most Japanese cities the dinner alone would easily cost this much. Look for the paper lantern, or request pick-up from Sosogi-guchi bus stop.
The road northeast from Sosogi village leads past the sea salt farms and Gojira-iwa (Godzilla rock, for its shape) into the town of Suzu and the remote cape Rokō-zaki, the peninsula’s furthest point. At the cape, you can amble up to the lighthouse in the village of Noroshi (); a signpost marks the distances to faraway cities (302km to Tokyo, 1598km to Shanghai). A coastal hiking trail runs west along the cape. It is rustic scenery, especially on weekdays when tourist buses run less frequently and Noroshi reverts to its sleepy fishing-village self.
As you head south, the road circles around the tip of the peninsula towards less dramatic scenery on the eastern coast, and, reluctantly, back towards Kanazawa.
Lamp no Yado (86-8000; www.lampnoyado.co.jp; r per person with 2 meals from ¥19,000; ), in remote Suzu, is a place that sparkles. This 14-room wood-built waterside village, far from the main drag, has been an inn since the 1970s, but the building goes back four centuries, to when people would escape to its curative waters for weeks at a time. Rooms (some two-storey) have private bathrooms and their own rotemburo. The pool is almost superfluous. A very worthy splurge;