Hakuza Hikarigura Store

This guide to the Hakuza Hikarigura Store in Kanazawa starts with a local saying about never forgetting your umbrella, and asks why a city famous for grey, rainy skies also became Japan's center for beating gold into impossibly thin leaf. You'll hear how gold leaf just a tenth of a micron thick reacts to static and dry air, and the months-long process of preparing the mulberry-fiber paper craftsmen hammer it against. Stand close to the gold and platinum walls and consider the weather that made them possible.