It had been snowing in Kyoto each day, but only for a few hours each day and melting when it hit the ground.  Almost as soon as I left Kyoto on the train heading north for Kanazawa, there was snow everywhere.  Here are a couple of shots out of the window of the train:

Not far out of Kyoto, from a moving train

Here, we were stopped at a station. Note the giant Buddha in the background.

When I got to Kanazawa, it was snowing heavily and the back streets of the city were a kind of eerie wonderland.

Young businessmen, perhaps. Suits and ties and umbrellas for the rain.

Waiting for passers-by

... Found one!

The young woman here is giving away free small packs of tissues on the street corner with some kind of commercial information on the wrapping, written of course in Japanese.

Some of the local boys ...

Municipal sculpture

A corner of a small shrine in a city street

Kanazawa escaped bombing in World War 2, so the old city survives.  This kind of snow was not typical for this time of the year.  In three of the previous four years, there was no snow at all for the equivalent days to my visit.

(All images with my “pocket camera”, a Fujifilm X100).