A Return to Nikko

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The ascent up to Nikko was a steady one, yet despite all the training over the past week or so I found it surprisingly draining. I think every now and then the body just needs to recharge, all the physical exertion obviously taking its toll, which is exactly what I planned to do upon arrival at my hostel in Nikko, recharge. I’d been to Nikko some 7 years ago as part of a 6 month tour of Eastern Asia, and as I pulled into town it still all seemed so very familiar, like it was only yesterday that I was here. The central bus station in the town square, its perimeter aligned with souvenir shops and an Indian restaurant where I and a friend once dived into one evening to escape a sudden downpour. A succession of side streets leading away from the town square and up a steepish hill leading up to the temple district. This is where I would find my hostel. The Nikkorissou, a rickety looking building from the outside but pleasantly charming from within. A traditional little Japanese house, very homely, especially the living room with its tatami floors, a kontatsu, sliding paper doors and a log burner. The place spliced together with the hostel theme, writing on the walls from the travelling community, a guitar and a set of Uno, an excellent requisite to any hostel, if any game is going to bring a pack of travellers together then it surely has to be Uno. Some smooth revellers have probably got themselves laid due to the gift of Uno, God bless them. The only negative I could possibly find was that in the toilets it encouraged all members of society to sit down to pee. Well that’s not going to happen, I’ll pee how I damn well please, so out of spite I pissed all up the wall and on the toilet roll a little bit. Oh, calm down, I didn’t really you silly sausage, I just sat down to pee like a good girl. I’m a firm rule abider, especially under someone else’s roof.

I would nestle here cozily for the next few days. I shared my room with a self-centred American chap of whom was more important than anyone, refusing to reciprocate any questions from his fellow travellers as is generally common courtesy whether or not you are interested in what that person actually has to say or not. He would totally go against that etiquette, expecting everyone to interview him about his boring experiences, he hadn’t a clue. One awful person aside, my other two roommates unlike myself and the American gent were respectable travellers, one chatty Romanian feller and his Hungarian counterpart. I would almost get excited by the fact that his girlfriend was Hungarian, I’d seen Hungarian girls before in real life with my own eyeballs in Budapest, they have a curious tendency to look a lot like porn stars. Unfortunately this specific Hungarian looked like a pile of bricks, she must have been from the outskirts of Budapest. Yet still, regardless of looks, it’s nice to shoot the breeze mindlessly and have a couple of drinking partners at the end of a long day. It makes one feel more human, and less alone in the world.

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