Tina, Steve, Marie and I headed to Nikko, 2 hours north of Tokyo where it is much cooler and there are many world heritage shrines and temples. Nikko is very mountainous and when we stepped out of the train station the view was fantastic!
The Daiya river runs through Nikko and there is a pool where you can dip your feet - being summer we thought we would give it a go but it was so cold - we could only stay in long enough for the photo and our legs were starting to get numb! I would love to come back in Winter as there would be a lot of snow and Nikko would look even more beautiful.
One of the main sites to see is the Shinkyo bridge - it is a sacred bridge which looks amazing as everything around it is blue and green.
Nikko had a lot of wildlife - we saw so many beautiful dragonflies and they would come right up to you and sometimes land on you before flying off again. Marie and I saw one eating a fly! We also saw grasshoppers and two snakes!
We spent half a day wandering around the Nikko National Park which has many World Heritage listed shrines and temples.
This is Rin-no-ji temple Taiyuin.
The sacred fence.
A cool statue at the entrance to the temple which represents the God of Thunder.
The gate leading to the temple.
A beautiful door on the gate to the temple.
A 5 storey pagoda.
This is at Futara-san shrine.
Message plaques of love!
This is Toshogu shrine which is famous for the 3 monkeys.
The sacred stable which actually has a horse in it from New Zealand!
Hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil.
We just had to do it too!
Different message plaques which people have attached 5 Yen or 50 Yen coins as they have a hole in the middle!
We also saw Sanbutsu-do which is the largest temple in Nikko with 3 beautiful, gold statues inside and Yakushi-do temple which has an amazing painting of a dragon on the ceiling. It is called the roaring dragon as if you stand under it's mouth and clap your hands you can hear jingling echoes.
Kegon falls and Chuzenji lake are about half an hour from Nikko and they are up in the mountains. We caught a bus up the very windy road and then we went to Kegon Falls. Kegon Falls is a 97 metre waterfall and you catch a lift down to ground level. You get to see the waterfall from the top and then the bottom. At the top of the waterfall it was 25 degrees and at the bottom it was 15 degrees - quite a bit cooler!
These kids were so cute - the boy is telling the girl off as she wouldn't pose properly for their Mum!
Lake Chuzenji.
I had a great time in Nikko and would love to go back there in winter to see everything covered with snow.
1 comment:
Snow in Nikko would be amazing! I want to see it too. How bout those snakes hey?? :-)
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