Wakamiya park

If you have kids and are in the Kanazawa area, this is a great park that is next to small pool and nice nice big grassy area. There’s also a pond as well.

The equipment is old but it’s big and has lots of activities for the kids.

The pool is usually for Kanazawa residents so it’s ¥200, but out of area people can enjoy it for ¥400 or double the price.

My kids really enjoyed the zip line… over and over and over again and because it was summer, we had fun chasing down the cicadas (semi). After a while, though, they just look like big flies…

It’s a hidden gem, and since we have hit up almost every park in the area, we feel this is one of the better ones.

Here’s a map just in case you don’t find it right away on Google and let us know if you’ve been to any other good parks in the area!

Ishi no Sato Park

I found this park on the Japanese blog and thought I’d share my experiences there with you.

If you find yourself in Kanazawa during the summer, have small kids, and have a rent-a-car, then a short, half-day excursion to Ishi no Sato Park might be your thing.

It’s deep in the mountains about an hour drive on local roads from downtown Kanazawa, and is a very fresh, little portion of river perfect for kids to cool off in during the hot summer.

After driving down the highway, you will start coming into rice fields and be driving through some pretty countryside roads but that’s part of the fun.

Once you get there, there’s a small parking lot and you can walk down to the river there.

There are three main portions of the river, upstream, middle, and a little bit downriver where the ponds are deeper.

The deeper portions, actually all the portions have little fish.

We brought some nets and some little plastic buckets from Daiso, but there was no way we were catching those fish. They were so fast, we were dreaming if we thought we were gonna catch one of them.

The water was cool and really made for a pleasant experience…

until a bus load of kids from the local school pulled up and turned the once serene stream into a loud rambunctious playground.

I’ll let the pics speak for themselves.

Hopefully you won’t run into this situation and to be honest, I think it’s rare. However, it does happen, and we were lucky that we got a few hours of playtime before they came.

Anyways, check it out totally a cool hidden spot. Bathrooms are clean and modern too!

Have you been here or do you have a similar place you like to take your kids?  Let us know in the comments below! 

Chirihama Nagisa Beach Drive Way was one of the more surprising activities that we enjoyed during our stay in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture.

Little did we know that it is one of the most recommended tourist spots in Uozu City.

The exclusive and unique road is an approximately 8-kilometer-long sandy drive along Chirihama Beach.

Not only cars, but also buses, motorcycles, and bicycles can travel along the sandy beach.

The exhilarating feeling of driving by the water’s edge is quite addictive once you experience it! I only meant to drive it once but ended up driving it EVERY time we went from Kanazawa to Noto Peninsula and I enjoyed 3-4 beach days by parking along side the road. The summer water was super warm and it was one of the most memorable places on my trip.

The secret of this road lies in the size of the sand. It’s super fine, almost like a powder and features grains that are about 0.2 millimeters in size.

Sand of the same size solidifies firmly by absorbing seawater and makes it possible to drive over whether it’s a two-wheel drive or a four-wheel drive vehicle.

More than anything however, it just feels weird and fun driving on the sand and having the waves break so close to your car. Definitely a must try!

Take a look at the Naminoko gai, and Funabashi gai digging onto the sand. They are all over the beach and kept us entertained for hours. They are famous for “riding” the waves and then burrowing into the sand as the waves retreat.

Supposedly, they have a very great flavor and people have used it since the old days for miso soup and other broths.

Here is a live cam of the Chirihama Nagisa Drive cam.

One of our most unexpectedly memorable adventures during our stay in Kanazawa was north toward the Noto Peninsula at the Noto Island Aquarium.

Our trusty Kei-car took us up the Chirihama Nagisa Beach Drive Way, through beautiful country scenery and up to the aquarium.

To be honest, we didn’t expect much, and we were just looking for some sort of activity to do in that direction. My first impression of the place was that it was old and from the Showa Era (golden years of Japan 10-20 yrs ago).

We paid the reasonable entrance fee and made our way in. The sun was blistering and it was a super hot 35°C outside. We took the walk from the parking lot and freely rushed into the air conditioner building.

Unlike other aquariums, the Noto Aquarium opened up immediately into one of its main attractions, the huge whale shark exhibit.

It wasn’t as big as the Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa but it turns out that this aquarium is the only one in northern Japan that houses, whale sharks, so that was sort of cool. The whale sharks seemed like younger ones, and were accompanied by other two sharks, a bunch of stingrays and other larger fish…

I didn’t think my kids would be too into it, but they spent a fair amount of time in all, just staring at the fish and at the ominous blue light. The path spiralled around the water tank, giving us multiple views of the aquatic environment.

After that, we walked through some actually pretty innovative and clever projection mapping displays and other illuminated walkways that really updated the feel.

It showed that the staff were actively trying to update the entertainment factor as much as possible. That is something that we really appreciated.

After that, we made our way through variety of different, aquatic, displays, fish, and crustaceans, which I kids really enjoyed.

After moving from building to building, we enjoyed the dolphin show outside and got up close with the penguin walk. Each penguin had a name and they were probably more than 30 of them. It was funny, watching the younger caretaker try to figure out the name of which penguin was giving him trouble. The more experienced caretaker was quizzing him on bodily markings and other hints.

We also got to feed the fish. That was actually more enjoyable than expected. There was a discreet little box with some fish food and a sign written in Japanese saying leave ¥100. Foreign tourists would totally miss this but it was definitely a lot of fun. The fish were used to getting fit so they were swan wherever you were. Try to throw the food as far as possible to watch them. Consequently, other tourist could walk underneath that particular aquarium, so they probably had a great show watching the fish swarm in different directions.

After lunch, we noticed a pier where you could go fishing for a fee. You could rent all the equipment and it is something we will definitely try it the next time. Even on other local, attraction, blogs, that fishing pier is highly rated so I think we will check it out.

The drive up there was also half the fun taking you through quaint old fishing villages and beautiful country sides with old school Japanese houses.

I’d give the aquarium a 3.5 out of 5 for facilities bit a 4 out of 5 for fun.

It’s just an enjoyable place to be and I look forward to going back there again.