Nikko Day 1

A few weekends ago I went to Nikko.  I am so far behind in updated my adventures!

I went to Asakusa in Tokyo and got a Nikko World Heritage pass, which got me round trip train fare and admission to most of the shrines for about 3600 yen.  Not a bad deal!

Rinnoji, the main temple in Nikko was under construction, but I was still able to see some of the artifacts, and walk over the construction site.  It looked like they had pretty much completely demolished the temple and were rebuilding it from scratch.  It will be under construction until 2021!

 Next I made my way to Toshugu shrine.  This was a nice pagoda!

 Here are the famous three monkeys in the left panel; see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.  From the attention they got in the guide book I was expecting them to be a lot bigger!

 Another over hyped thing was the sleeping cat.  It is on a lot of souvenirs in Nikko, but it was super tiny!

 The temples and shrines in Nikko are much more ornate than elsewhere in Japan.

 A close up of some intricate detail.

 I had to stop and have lunch - I tried a local specialty, yuba.  Yuba is tofu skin all rolled up.  Here I had yuba soba, it was really delicious.  Apparently yuba is prominent in the diet of monks, who are vegetarians.

 And the temples continued after lunch!  There was a light coating of snow in Nikko that made all of the buildings really pretty!

 I was amazed that there were no people on this path!  It was a beautiful day out on Saturday.  The sun was really nice and warm.

 There were many of these scary looking statues around.

 After seeing all of the temple sites I took a break in a cute little cafe to look in my guidebook and consult the maps.  This might be the fanciest hot chocolate I have ever had!

 After my little break I went to see the sacred bridge.  It costs 300 yen to walk across it.  I decided to walk across the bridge parallel to it and take pictures of it instead!

 After I checked into the ryokan I was staying at I went for a walk before dinner.  I was racing the setting sun, but I managed to get a small glimpse of Kanmagafuchi Abyss.

 Here there were a lot of Buddha statues.  They all had red crocheted caps and little bibs.  It looks like someone (or a group of people!) must make all of them and replace them as they wear out.

 Hello moon!

 There was a nice little waterfall.  This was about as far as I went down the path, it was starting to get dark and without a flashlight I had to turn back!

 This Buddha was covered in moss.  I think he looks pretty peaceful.

In my search for dinner I passed the sacred bridge again, and it was lit up nicely.

 After finding some dinner I went back to the ryokan - Turtle Inn.  I got comfy in my yukata, which had turtles on it!  I like turtles!

Tim's visit: Nokogiriyama

On Tim's last day in Japan we went on a great hike at Nokogiriyama in Chiba prefecture.  This is a place I have been wanting to go for a while now, but I haven't had the chance!

We took the train to Kurihama at the end of the Yokosuka line, and then took a taxi to the ferry terminal.  The ferry crossed the bay to Chiba in about 40 minutes.  It was a nice ride, and when the ferry turned around to dock, we saw Fuji-san!

Tim got a good view of Fuji-san from out walk to the base of the mountain.  It was much clearer than the day before!

 There was a ropeway that went up the mountain, but we were in the mood to hike up.  Once we found the start of the path it was a nice hike, but steep!  We didn't go up these stairs, but took the route to the left in this photo - it was more of a hiking trail through the woods.  But we got plenty of stairs in eventually!

 Nokogiriyama was once a mining operation, and it is filled with strangely angular cut rocks.  It was quite the sight to see cubes cut out of giant sheer rock faces.

 Tim climbed down this hill and explored a little in the mine caves.  I wasn't so brave, that hill was very steep!

 The views from along the hike were amazing!

 More cut away cliff, so bizarre!

 Here are some more stairs!  This day involved a lot of up and downs!

 There were plants growing where the rocks were cut!

 At one point we came across some old mining equipment that had been left there to rust and rot.

Eventually we came to a shrine area.  This was a large Buddha carved into the rock face.

 More life eeking out an existence.

 This vantage point was called "peering into hell".  We both took a turn standing on it and having our picture taken from across the way.

 This tree had an interesting way of growing.

 We finally reached the daibutsu!  This is huge!  I think it might actually be the largest in Japan, and it is certainly the largest made out of stone!

 I think this area is probably beautiful with blossoms now - it has been two weeks since we were there.

 These rock formations kind of look like waves, they were cool.

 After our long hike we were pooped!  We took the ropeway back down the mountain, then the ferry and train back to Yokohama, and had some tonkatsu for dinner.  Then Tim spent a long time taking picture of Minato Mirai from our hotel room!

That's it for the updates on Tim's visit!  I can't believe we managed to do so much while he was here!  It was so nice to have him to travel with, even if he did tend to overestimate my Japanese speaking ability!

Tim's visit: Kamakura and Enoshima

On Tim's last weekend here, we didn't have too much planned for the first day.  We ended up going to Kamakura and Enoshima, just kind of figuring out the day as we went a long.  I think Tim enjoyed the day off from the clipboard of fun.  :)

We started at the Daibustu.  Maybe it's not as impressive as the one in Nara, but it's still pretty awesome!

 Tim went inside and took this picture of the inside of the Buddha's head.

 There were many rickshaw drivers out that day.  Their job looks hard!

 Next we went to Hase-dera.  I can't believe I've never been there before, but now I think it might be my favorite temple in Japan!  It is just beautiful!

 There were some caves and inside they were filled with tiny Buddha statues.

 There was even a waterfall!

 Things were starting to grow again, it was a small sign of spring!

 So many Buddhas!

 Near a small snack stand there was this sign.   And there were lots of hawks (kites?).

Look at them all!  They got pretty close to the people, too!

 More of the temple.  It was very large.

 After the temple we decided to go to Enoshima.  On the way there we saw some people surfing.  It was way to cold for that!  There were more hawks on Enoshima.

Once we got to Enoshima Tim had a snack of this shell dwelling creature.  We're not sure what it was, but he said it was chewy.  With that description, I declined to try any.

 From the top of the sea candle there was a pretty good view.  A little while before this we had a snack in the garden at the base of the sea candle.  Tim didn't get to finish his snack because a hawk stole it right out of his hand!  We should have paid more attention to the sign!

 A dragon guarding a small cave.

 This was inside the caves at the back of the island.  Even though I've been here before, this dragon still gives me the creeps!

 We found a lot of interesting things in the tide pools at the back of the island.  Here is an anemone.  We also saw starfish and sea slugs!

 The clouds were just blocking Fuji-san, but it wasn't too bad for Tim's first glimpse of the mountain!

 More hawks!

 The hawks were pretty amazing to watch.  The just soared around for ages.

 This was a nice stress-free day, and it was good to just walk around with no real purpose for a little while!  After our day we ended up eating some delicious okonomiyaki that I thought I had a picture of, but I don't.  It was decorated with sauce and mayonnaise on top to look like a snowman and a bunny.  It was sooo cute, but that didn't stop us from eating it!