Blogs from Nikko, Tochigi, Japan, Asia - page 7

Hi, Nikko is a lovely place full of temples and shrines. I just upload some pictures to give you an impression. I also got to know the difference between temple and shrine. On sad occasions Japanese go to the Buddhist temple on good ones to the Shinto shrine. By the way the autumn colours here are so lovely... Usually I experiencened the Japanese trains as very precise. But on the way back we witnessed a rare event: The Japan Rail train delayed over an hour. LOL.. Cu Stefan... read more

After two weeks of being absorbed in the busy city life of Tokyo I decided I was due for a trip outside of the city, so on August 14th (Statutory holiday for the Embassy) I boarded a train and headed north to Nikko in Tochigi prefecture. Nikko is considered part of Northern Honshu and is much more rural than Central and Western Honshu... it made for a great 1-day trip from Tokyo! Although I had intended to start bright and early (like 7am early) I did not reach the train station until about 9:30. Adding to my late start to the day I somehow ended up on a 4.5 hour train ride instead of the 2hr40min train to Nikko. My initial reaction was frustration, however, after realizing that I was passing by some really pretty ... read more

Jan 3 - We woke up later than we planned and so we had to rush to go to Nikko. Nikko is this small country side town on the north or Tokyo. It is very famous for its beautiful temples and a waterfall that looks like a dragon. We took a train and it took us 2 hours to get to Nikko. We were planning to go to the falls first so theres still light and then do the temples. But when we got there (at around 2 pm) they told us that the temples will close at 330. so we did the temples first. We went to a famous one with the 3 monkeys ('the see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil) the temples and shrines were really pretty but after a ... read more

First To answer a couple of questions in my comments section. Sebastion is my cousin in the Phillipines. He has traveled all around Asia. He is helping give me ideas of where to go and what to do. I did the public bath last night. It was interesting. There have been no pics of risa's family so far because posting pics can be hard sometimes without help. The computer stuff is all in Japanese. So unless I have somebody to help me, I cannot put any pics into the entries. Don't worry though, I have help now and two entries will be added tonight with a lot of pics. I am having a perfect trip so far. And cheap. I have spent less than $100 and I have been here a week. Yesterday we visited some ... read more

Still stuffed from the birthday that consisted of sitting around all day eating, the next morning we got the rental van, picked up the children's grandma, and headed north. It took seemingly forever to get there but when we finally arrived we headed first to Nikko Toshogu, the main attraction in Nikko. Nikko, a World Heritage site, is most famous for its mausoleums of the Tokugawa Shoguns. Toshogu is the most magnificent of all of the temples and shrines. In the Toshogu complex, there are various gates, halls, buildings, etc. One of the most famous symbols there is the carving of the Three Monkeys, from which the saying "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" originated. After a fair amount of sightseeing, we stopped in at Edo Wonderland, a miniature Japanese village geared for ... read more