Visiting Nikko, Japan

We started our day with a meal of hot dogs and buns, coleslaw, potato salad, steamed broccoli, and soup.  It sounds like an all-American picnic lunch, but it was actually the breakfast buffet at our business hotel in Tokyo.  This is a traditional Japanese breakfast, and we were the only non-Asians in the large room.  We were glad to see a fork so we could eat faster.  Just to remind us that we were in Japan, we also had tuna sushi, plum sushi, and tofu misso on the buffet.  The only thing that resembled a western breakfast were the yellow squares labeled "Japanese omelet."  We should have taken pictures of the buffet, but we didn't want to look like a couple of tourists.  Actually it was pretty obvious that we weren't locals because we weren't wearing business suits.

We walked around Tokyo before catching the shinkansen train north out of the city.  It was too early for some of the shops to be open, as the door was still closed on the Pokemon store.  Our sons played this game 20 years ago, so it is interesting to know that it is still alive and well in Japan.

We were boarding our first train of the day at Tokyo Station.  With its electric signage of train arrival and departures, it looks more like an airport than a train station.

We also saw our first double-decker train at this station.  You can see a row of windows close to platform level, and another set one story above the platform.  In our seven days of using the Japan Rail pass, we never rode a double-decker train.

We are getting pretty good at making transfers between shinkansens to local trains, and there is a remarkable difference between the two.  The shinkansens run smooth and have comfortable individual seats.  The local trains have stiff benches along the outside walls and straps hanging from the ceiling for standing passengers to hang on to when it gets crowded.  It was a nice ride uphill on that local train through the mountain foliage to get to our destination of Nikko.

We arrived in the mountain town of Nikko--home to another world heritage site.  Instead of buying the 500 yen bus pass, of course we walked the 2.2 kilometers through town to the national park where the famous temples are found.  We also found some famously lovely red maple trees.

Town is decked out in its finest fall foliage, and it looks like there are record crowds today.

Our main focus is visiting Toshogu temple grounds.  That would also be the focus of thousands of other Asians today.

This is the world heritage site, and the most famous of many temples in this area.  We are finding that visiting a famous temple is not a trip to one building.  There might be closer to twenty buildings on the temple grounds, and that was true for us today with each building more ornate than the next.

Some of the detail was amazing, and the Japanese have learned how important it is to continually restore these detailed paintings.

We saw this group of girls, giggling as they each read the fortunes that they purchased at the temple.

We have discovered that undesirable fortunes can be tied on a wire at the temple, in hopes of getting a better fortune later.  We wondered how many of those girls' fortunes would not be desirable, and would end up tied on this wire.

Our map listed several "must see" items.  One of those would be the elephants carved into the temple ornamentation.

It mentioned that it was famously obvious that the carvers had never seen an elephant.  They also must have thought that elephants were very angry animals.

This is also home to the original "hear no evil/see no evil/speak no evil" monkeys, a traditional symbol of Japanese culture.

The guidebook mentioned that westerners are usually unimpressed with the sleeping cat carving that is highlighted in the temple map we got when we paid our admission.  We would have to agree with the guidebook's opinion that the sleeping cat was a yawner.

There are no pictures allowed inside the temple, so Denisa stayed inside and Mark took her picture from the outside.

The detail of the carvings inside and out are beautiful, so we include a close up to appreciate it.

Another item on our map was the roaring dragon temple, known for its ancient picture of a dragon painted on the ceiling.  There is a demonstration inside where a monk claps together two sticks at the tail of the dragon and we could hear only the normal clap of wood.  But when he stood at the head of the dragon and did the same action, the clapping sticks "ring like a roaring dragon".  (That is a direct quote from the temple handout.)  Mark would point out that a roar would definitely be an over-statement, and he noticed that the monk held the sticks differently to help the echoing effect.  He would also have to point out that these sacred places with no pictures allowed, will have a monk doing an info-mercial announcement for the good luck charms available for sale in the temple.  The monks would be happy to take 800-1200 yen in exchange for a charm guaranteeing luck in school, child-birth, finding a job, passing a test . . .  Suddenly the temple didn't feel as sacred.

Another part of this temple grounds was the trek to the burial site of one of Japan's rulers.  There are 200 steps to climb to the burial site, and that climb didn't seem to discourage any of the Asian visitors today.  I'm not sure if all the tourists in the United States could have made this climb.

This is the tomb of Ieyasu, early ruler of Japan.  Not that impressive a site for the climb to get there.

We had to look up the information about the burial site, because signs like this at the site really aren't that helpful to us.  The only thing more baffling to us are the announcements in Japanese.  We always wonder what is so important that it deserves an announcement over a loud speaker, but not repeated in any other language.  We have learned that if everyone reacts to a message, we should probably do the same thing.  That worked for us at the airport when they made an announcement and everyone left the gate where we were waiting to board a plane.  It seems the gate was changed for our flight, but they didn't announce it in English.

Even though most of the temple grounds seem to be strictly ornamental, there are still some ceremonies going on here.  In one of the smaller buildings with the doors wide open there appeared to be a wedding ceremony that day.

We are about templed-out, so we preferred wandering the beautiful forest trails instead of paying to enter the other temples of Nikko.

Even without paying to go inside there were still beautiful views of the temple gates and the fall foliage.

We have noticed that Japanese parents are very proud of their children, and this little boy looks like a prince as they pose for a family picture.

We have seen very few animals of any kind since we have been in Japan.  There have been a hand-full of dogs on leashes, and a couple of protected deer masquerading as god's messengers.  But no agricultural animals and no other wildlife.  I guess that is why there was a line of people taking pictures of this little snake.  Following our usual plan, we got in that line and took a picture of this little brown snake as well.

We like to sample local street food, and we found an unusual Japanese pancake stand.  She explained that the batter had dried shrimp and cabbage in it.  She rolled it around a set of wooden chopsticks, filled it with cheese, and decorated it with mayo and ketchup.

Interesting, but not our best purchase of the trip.  Two bites and we were looking for those hard-to-find trash cans.

That brings us to another observation.  In all the cities and countryside, there are almost no public trash cans.  We saw a few recycling bins for cans or plastic bottles, but almost no place to dispose of things like inedible pancakes.  But we saw almost no litter in the ten days we visited here.  We're not sure how the culture has trained this huge population to carry their trash home with them, but it seems to be working.  Another way to limit the litter is that we haven't seen paper towels in even one restroom in Japan.  There have been a few electric hand dryers, but Denisa noticed that most women carry a wash cloth-sized towel in their purses for drying hands.  We stopped at the 100 yen store (very similar to our dollar stores) to buy a little towel too.  This narrative doesn't describe the picture below, but it did provide an opportunity to slip in yet another beautiful picture of the trees we were enjoying today.

After striking out with our pancakes, we did better with our fried soba dumplings, and the strawberry sundae we bought later in the day back in town.

We have been traveling with train reservations, but finished early in Nikko and tried to get on an earlier shinkansen back to Tokyo.  Of the 16 cars of the train, 5 of them have unreserved seats that any ticket holder can sit in without making reservations and paying the fees associated with that process.  It was a good experience for us to try, but those unreserved cars were packed and we would have had to stand up for the 40 minute trip into Tokyo because no seats were open.  So we waited 30 minutes at the station for our very comfortable reserved seats on the next shinkansen.

We got back to Tokyo to see some of its night life, but that seems like a topic for another blog.  We are actually back in the United States now, trying to catch up with blogging while recovering from jet lag.  Thanks for coming along on our Asian Adventures!