From Kanazawa: Eiheiji Buddhist Temple & Fukui Castle Town

This tour will start at Kanazawa Station at 8:30 A.M., where your guide will meet you in front of the Information Center near the Shinkansen Ticket Gates.

Soon after grouping up, we will hop on the train to Fukui. The about 40 minute ride will give you an excellent view of the mountains to the west.

After arriving at Fukui Station, you will be greeted by the multitude of dinosaur statues. This prefecture is the location of Japan’s largest archaeological dig and has a few dinosaurs named after it. There will be time to walk around the station and find some of the more artistic and funny ones.

For the next section of the tour we will walk to the castle ruins, with the great walls and moat and even more unusually, the prefectural office and police headquarters inside. The walls are original to the construction but there is also a bridge that faithfully reproduces what it looked like during the Edo period. There wasn’t a keep for many years so instead the gates around the castle were reinforced to act as the final line of defense, making it unique among castles in Japan.

A short walk away from the castle is a shrine that has recently become popular because of the origami cranes that are hung at the entrance. It is a really striking visual to embue hope for a better future.

This area of the city has a long history, recorded in historical records from before the 700s. We will walk along the edge of this large hill until reaching Zuigenji. This temple has two rooms from the former Fukui castle. They were both rooms where the daimyo used to conduct his private business and often slept. One of the rooms is preserved as is from that time period and the stunning details and colors of the upper class is something to marvel at.

The final stop before lunch is the Atagozaka or the Atago Slope. This is a series of staircases that lead up to the top of the large series of hills. One of the oldest shrines in all of the prefecture rests up here as well as probably the best view of Fukui City’s modern skyline.

The afternoon part of the tour will start by hopping on a direct bus to Eiheiji, one of the head temples of the Zen Buddhist sect, that has been in existence since the 1200s. Many of the buildings and cedar trees that surround them are said be built around the founding, making them about 680 years old.

There are so many great angles to find that mix of traditional architecture and timeless nature both on the temple ground itself and around it. We will slowly walk through the complex as your guide talks about the history of Zen Buddhism, Eiheiji Temple and their importance to Japanese history.

After getting a taste of Zen in its Japanese homeland, we will head back to the hustle and bustle of city life. Getting on a direct bus back to Fukui Station that will take just under 30 minutes, where we will leave our friends staying in Fukui, and then the train to Kanazawa should get us back home by 18:00.