Asanogawa Bridge

This guide to Asanogawa Bridge in Kanazawa follows Nanatsu-bashi Watari, the seven bridge crossing, a silent midnight walk still made along the Asano River on the middle night of the spring and autumn equinox. It traces the custom's rules, prayer beads, a bow at each end of every bridge, and total silence for the full two kilometers, along with the specific white undergarments once prescribed for the walk. You'll hear when the ritual seems to have begun, and how this arch, rebuilt in concrete in 1922, replaced the wooden bridge that carried the same crossing generations earlier. Stand here at the equinox, and you're one stop in a walk that has kept its silence for generations.