Nikko

We turned in our Japan Rail Pass voucher for the week, and headed out of Tokyo. We were originally going to go straight to Kyoto, but Mike and Alicia mentioned a festival going on in Nikko, which is just north of Tokyo. It's to celebrate the building of the mausoleum to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the shogun who turned Edo (now Tokyo) into the capital and united all of Japan. He's also one of the main historical figures in Shogun.

This was our first experience on the Shinkansen or bullet train. It's a very comfortable and fast way to travel. We transferred to a local train once we got close to Nikko and at the station asked about the festival. The guy at the ticket counter told us we were a day early! We later found out that they were having the Yabusame or archery on horseback competition, so we decided to stay.

As soon as you get off the train, we noticed the beautiful scenery just outside of this small town:


Nikko from Train Station
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We walked up the hill through the town to the shrine area. On the way, we were considering staying in Nikko that night to take part in the festival. We later decided that there was so much to see, we wanted to get to Kyoto the next day instead.

As we climbed the hill, we noticed the firemen training at the fire station. They would practice zipping across this wire high in the air, looked like fun (you'll need to click on the photo below to see the firemen at the top of the photo):


Firemen Training
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The first thing we saw when we got to the top of the road through town, was this beautiful bridge over a fast running river. The story goes, this bridge was built at the exact spot where a famous buddist monk named Shin-Kyo rode on the back of two serpents across the river (cool).


Shin-Kyo Bridge
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From there, we climbed further up a stone path to the entrance to the main shrine area. Very cool fountain at the entrance. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be Tokugawa, or what. As you can see, the signs are a little difficult to read.


Tokugawa and his sidekick dragon?
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Before checking out the shrines, we thought we'd have lunch under some pine trees on the mossy grass. After a long voyage from Tokyo, it felt good to take a break in the cool clean air. Most of our trip was in the low 70s, upper 60s, so it was a perfect time to go. Here's where we ate, in back of this cool little car that Ann really liked.


Lunch Spot and very very small SUV.
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After lunch, we headed up to the shrines. There was also a Japanese garden that we toured, which was really pretty. I would have taken a nap there, if they would have let me. Very peaceful. Here's Ann striking a pose in the garden.


Ann in the Japanese garden
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After the Japanese garden, we toured the shrines. They don't allow pictures in many of the shrines. There were 3 large buddhas that looked to be about 20 feet tall in the first shrine. They were covered in gold and very ornate.

We then walked up to the main area where Tokugawa's mausoleum is located. After walking through the Torii, you first notice a 5 story pagoda. It's said that this pagoda has no foundation, and a pendulum hanging down the middle on the inside to balance the structure during earthquakes.


Nikko pagoda
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As we walked further, there's a building that has carvings of monkeys on the front which is the basis for the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.


Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil monkeys
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From there, we entered the main gate of Tokugawa's shrine. This shrine is decorated much more ornately than most Japanese shrines, and is considered more in the Chinese style. There are guardians at the gate, which is true of most shrines, but this one had Tokugawa's loyal samurai archers keeping watch. Very cool carvings of the archers.


Tokugawa's shrine entrance
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Samurai archer guardian
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We entered Tokugawa's shrine, and walked to the back room area which is where he is enshrined. It wasn't a remarkable room, but was interesting in that the shoji (room divider doors) are only opened when the emperor visits.

more to come about Nikko...