Wednesday, April 25, 2007
April 9
Further excitement! Being as we had our awesome, awesome, awesome JR pass, we took the opportunity to do a quick little side-trip out of Tokyo, to a town with some interesting sights called Nikko. Fantastic. We actually woke up at 5:30 and got to the metro rail before it opened, but only by a few minutes. Jess got some warm coffee-beverage to warm up.
We got to the JR station and bought breakfast there, I got a bento box, which is…uh…a bunch of Japanese stuff. I liked. Jess got sammich.
Our first bullet train! Those things move fast. We got on real quick-like, which was good because the train stopped for roughly 60 seconds, and then it was gone. Do not be late for your bullet train. There is no final boarding call.
Zoom! Vroom! Transfer to another train! Zoom! Nikko!
We first walked through the temples. These were some freakin’ TEMPLES! The first was this gi-gnormigous wooden structure that held some neat Buddhist (I think) artifacts. Chief among them were three huge golden statues of three different aspects of Buddha. Really pretty but, as was often the case, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. I saw them though; they were great. And the building? Huge.
The next was a shrine to Ieasu Tokugawa, the guy that ultimately finished uniting Japan. It is famous for being elaborate on top of elaborate on top of crazy. Just check out some of these pictures! Every surface was engraved or carved or gilded or all three, and the shrine just went on forever. Smaller buildings, but an infinite number of them.
This is a horse donated by the Dutch government to the Japanese to the temple as a show of goodwill (more important back when they were exclusive trading partners). They use it for some of their ceremonies.
And then engraved on the wall above the stable, three familiar monkeys. Evidently, these are the *original*, which is sort of mind-bending. It all started here, folks. Wow.
More awesomeness all over, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
We stopped for lunch at a place that served noodles (Udon) and some sort of soy-milk bi-product called Yuba. Good stuff, actually.
Next, a hundreds-of-years-old shrine. I liked seeing these little portable mini-shrines. Pretty. There was also a 400-year-old lantern there. Do you own a 400-year-old lantern? I didn’t think so.
Finally, the Taiyu-in Mausoleum, the resting place of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. (I’m reading out of the guidebook, here). Famous for its gates. It was drizzling at this point, so we busted out our ‘emergency ponchos’. They’re great, and they fold up small enough to fit in your back pocket. Oh, and the Mausoleum was pretty spectacular, too, we especially liked the statues housed in the gates. Check out that grimace!
Overall, the temples were amazing to the point of ridiculousness. Seriously, it was all too much to take in. Glad we went, though, those places were just wild. Jessie liked all the trees.
Next we wanted to hike to a nearby waterfall we’d heard about, one where you could hike up *behind* the falls. Yeah, wild, I know. It took some work, but eventually we figured out the bus system and then walked the 2.5 km off the main road to find this place.
Along the way, little statues. We don’t know why they put little aprons on them, but they do.
So the trail up to the waterfall ends in this big, wooden viewing platform. We hopped the railing and I stayed at the bottom while Jessie climbed up behind the waterfall. The trickiest part was actually navigating a bunch of slippery logs strewn around the base of the viewing platform. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but these are my favorites. Though, to tell the truth, I was also down there to act as a lifeguard. Luckily, I didn’t have to, because Jess was very kind to her overprotective boyfriend and did not fall to her doom.
We walked back to the main road and sat to wait for the bus back to the station. We saw a monkey. (!) I’d read that there were wild monkeys around this place, but still, crazy! Monkeys just …hangin’ around.
After that, hopped back to Tokyo, grabbing dinner at some random restaurant we found near the hostel and picking up some ice cream bars at a ‘mart’ for desert. Tasty. Then, we slept, and dreamed, presumably, of waterfalls and temples.
-N
Further excitement! Being as we had our awesome, awesome, awesome JR pass, we took the opportunity to do a quick little side-trip out of Tokyo, to a town with some interesting sights called Nikko. Fantastic. We actually woke up at 5:30 and got to the metro rail before it opened, but only by a few minutes. Jess got some warm coffee-beverage to warm up.
We got to the JR station and bought breakfast there, I got a bento box, which is…uh…a bunch of Japanese stuff. I liked. Jess got sammich.
Our first bullet train! Those things move fast. We got on real quick-like, which was good because the train stopped for roughly 60 seconds, and then it was gone. Do not be late for your bullet train. There is no final boarding call.
Zoom! Vroom! Transfer to another train! Zoom! Nikko!
We first walked through the temples. These were some freakin’ TEMPLES! The first was this gi-gnormigous wooden structure that held some neat Buddhist (I think) artifacts. Chief among them were three huge golden statues of three different aspects of Buddha. Really pretty but, as was often the case, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. I saw them though; they were great. And the building? Huge.
The next was a shrine to Ieasu Tokugawa, the guy that ultimately finished uniting Japan. It is famous for being elaborate on top of elaborate on top of crazy. Just check out some of these pictures! Every surface was engraved or carved or gilded or all three, and the shrine just went on forever. Smaller buildings, but an infinite number of them.
This is a horse donated by the Dutch government to the Japanese to the temple as a show of goodwill (more important back when they were exclusive trading partners). They use it for some of their ceremonies.
And then engraved on the wall above the stable, three familiar monkeys. Evidently, these are the *original*, which is sort of mind-bending. It all started here, folks. Wow.
More awesomeness all over, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
We stopped for lunch at a place that served noodles (Udon) and some sort of soy-milk bi-product called Yuba. Good stuff, actually.
Next, a hundreds-of-years-old shrine. I liked seeing these little portable mini-shrines. Pretty. There was also a 400-year-old lantern there. Do you own a 400-year-old lantern? I didn’t think so.
Finally, the Taiyu-in Mausoleum, the resting place of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu. (I’m reading out of the guidebook, here). Famous for its gates. It was drizzling at this point, so we busted out our ‘emergency ponchos’. They’re great, and they fold up small enough to fit in your back pocket. Oh, and the Mausoleum was pretty spectacular, too, we especially liked the statues housed in the gates. Check out that grimace!
Overall, the temples were amazing to the point of ridiculousness. Seriously, it was all too much to take in. Glad we went, though, those places were just wild. Jessie liked all the trees.
Next we wanted to hike to a nearby waterfall we’d heard about, one where you could hike up *behind* the falls. Yeah, wild, I know. It took some work, but eventually we figured out the bus system and then walked the 2.5 km off the main road to find this place.
Along the way, little statues. We don’t know why they put little aprons on them, but they do.
So the trail up to the waterfall ends in this big, wooden viewing platform. We hopped the railing and I stayed at the bottom while Jessie climbed up behind the waterfall. The trickiest part was actually navigating a bunch of slippery logs strewn around the base of the viewing platform. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but these are my favorites. Though, to tell the truth, I was also down there to act as a lifeguard. Luckily, I didn’t have to, because Jess was very kind to her overprotective boyfriend and did not fall to her doom.
We walked back to the main road and sat to wait for the bus back to the station. We saw a monkey. (!) I’d read that there were wild monkeys around this place, but still, crazy! Monkeys just …hangin’ around.
After that, hopped back to Tokyo, grabbing dinner at some random restaurant we found near the hostel and picking up some ice cream bars at a ‘mart’ for desert. Tasty. Then, we slept, and dreamed, presumably, of waterfalls and temples.
-N
Labels: Japan, Nikko, Temples, Waterfalls
Comments:
I think my favorite bit so far is that is appears you and J(5) managed to vacation in different climates (you in bare arms, her in fleece and often hat). Keep up the posting/ narration- this is good foder for the "why our money would be better spent on a trip to iceland than a big TV" discussion we keep having.
-S
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-S
# posted by 
: April 26, 2007 at 9:43 AM
: April 26, 2007 at 9:43 AM