We wanted to be out of Hakuba nice and early, as we had a 130 mile drive to Kanazawa to make that day. We were out and about by 7am, and before leaving Hakuba, made one last attempt to see the alps and drove up to 天神坂 a viewpoint over some rice fields. Sadly the typhoon clouds were sitll present, but it was a beautiful view.

The aim of the day was to drive to Kanazawa through Niigata, specifically to visit Itoigawa UNESCO Global Geopark. It was a stunning day and we were driving on local roads, enjoying the views on our way to our first stop, Takanaminoike. It was only 8:45 by the time we arrived and the stores weren’t yet open. We had a nice stroll around the lake, which only took about 30 minutes, and then we headed off. We ran into our first signal issue in all of our trips, and had managed to find the only part of Japan that our WiFi and SatNav couldn’t find any connection at all. Luckily there were some old road signs in Japanese and we were able to head down into the valley to Kotakigawa Jade Gorge.

This area of Japan, like a lot of Japan really, has some really interesting geological features. Here there are enormous boulders made of Jade. The gorge washed jade down the river and into the sea, which then washes up on the local beaches.

The jade rocks are absolutely garagantuan, it is hard to believe that these boulders are made of jade, a precious stone. It was boiling hot by 9:30am when we arrived, but we took a walk down the river and found a wonderful lookout point. This is when we were attacked by a suzumebachi (murder hornet) which led to a sprint down the road. They obviously felt the lookout was their nest, I’ll leave them to it!

Once back at the car this is where the lack of signal became a slight problem. We weren’t able to search on our in car SatNav, and had no internal access to use Google maps, so couldn’t put in our next location. Luckily, thanks to staring at maps for months prior planning, I had a good idea where we were headed, and navigated within the SatNav map and dropped a pin. Fingers crossed, we headed off.

The drive was only 17 miles but it took over an hour, we found ourselves on the most narrow and steep roads I had ever experienced in Japan! Our lovely Roomy did a great job maintaining power up the steep and winding roads, and we were lucky not to pass anyone on the way. Once we were out of the mountain we drove along the beautiful Himekawa, which sweeps the jade out to sea.

Our first beach stop was Lavender beach, the jade that washes up here can be more lavender is hue, hence the name. It was over 30°C and the beach only added to it, the stones were radiating heat themselves. We spent about half an hour dodging the tide and looking at stones. You are allowed to collect some stones here, and so we picked one we liked, and quickly got back to the car.

The reason we knew about the jade beaches of Niigata was thanks to an NHS program: 72 hours. The program covered the Oyashirazu Beach, the premier jade beach and top spot for collectors of jade. We really loved the look of the place, and so this was our next spot. We weren’t disappointed, the beach was fully occupied by jade hunters, and so we joined them! It was good fun looking at the stones, and feeling like we were part of the culture of jade hunting. We didn’t have the kit though, the real pros have colinders/tea strainers on poles to quickly sort through the newly washed up stones.

Although we selected some lovely stones, we weren’t convinced they were jade, so we headed under the expressway where local women have stalls set up selling jade jewellery and authenticating stones that you collect. We didn’t want to know whether our stones were (or were not) jade, but we bought some lovely pieces from them. Once again boiled alive on the beach, we got back in the car, and had one more goal before leaving Niigata, to find some koshihikari rice, the famous rice of Niigata, the best rice in all of Japan. Just before we got to the border we found a small service station, which seemed to only sell rice and jade. We got 1kg of koshihikari, and it is absolutely delicious.

Onto our third prefecture of the day, starting off in Nagano and driving through Niigata, we found ourselves on the expressway shooting across Toyama. Thanks to the speed of the expressways we soon found ourselves in Ishikawa, and in the centre on Kanazawa. We were staying in a renovated town house, and after a convulted trip to a local hotel to pick up the keys, we were able to check in. It was beautiful, and so was Kanazawa.

From our lovely town house we walked to the Higashi Chaya district, the old tea house and geisha area from the Edo periods. Although the walk there was beautiful, especially the river, but the district was too busy for it to be enjoyable, so we planned to return early one morning to properly see the old buildings.

The house was quite big, see below, and we were able to park next door which was great. One Coco curry order later, we enjoyed an evening in our tatami room, and rolled out the futon upstairs to get to sleep.