A 24 hour stopover in Kanazawa reinforced my belief that I absolutely lucked out on my choice of the town as my first place to stay in Japan two years ago.  It's a great spot with Kenrokuen garden, the castle and its extensive grounds (not forgetting the smaller but delightful garden within the grounds), other open spaces, its historical areas, its museums, its modern facilities and its surrounding countryside and closeness to the sea.  

I had lunch with Keita and friends.  This is my lunch.  The main item (top left) is like beef olives except that the beef was pork and the filling was avocado.  Delicious and tempting to try it at home.

I then spent the afternoon in the gardens and the castle grounds.  It was Children's Day, almost the end of the Golden Week holidays and everything was very busy.  In the castle grounds there were various stalls and a number of entertainers.  A group of girls were doing a fast song and dance routine that I quite failed to get an action shot of and my attempts to photograph kids flying kites on one of the large lawns were equally underwhelming so they won't grace a calendar or even a blogpost any time soon.  My excuse is that I'd dumped my luggage, including my camera, at my hotel before lunch so had only my phone to use.

I'll leave you instead with another shot from Kenrokuen which the phone has captured very well.