Nikko

It has been a while since I updated this page.  The reason is because I cannot update through my phone anymore.  It is something that can be fixed, but I have not actually done it.  I may not get around to it because I only have a week left in Japan.

On Saturday I went up to a small town called Nikko.  It is a couple of hours outside of Tokyo by train.  Of course, we took the cheapest one so it took closer to 3 hours.  The town of Nikko is quite beautiful, but it still felt fairly touristy.  I have not been able to escape that feeling in my travels around Japan.  I enjoyed the landscape, temples, rivers, and fresh air.  The groups of “follow the flag” tourists and ridiculously high prices on everything tainted the experience, however.  I am sure the constant torrent of ceaseless rain had something to do with it too.

I booked a ryokan-style hotel through hostelworld.com.  I do not know if it was an actual ryokan, but there was a tatami.  The owner was a very friendly older man who offered to drive us pretty much anywhere we wanted to go within about a 10 minute commute.  We ended up walking around on Saturday night only to find that everything closes at around 6pm in Nikko.  That night ended fairly early to rest for what would be a full day of walking in the rain.

Our first stop was to a lake.  I would mention the name of the lake, but I cannot remember it.  There was a waterfall nearby called Kegan Falls, but I had to take their word for it.  Even after visiting, all I saw was a blanket of fog and rain with a waterfall sound coming from somewhere behind it.  After that disappointing trip we hopped on another bus.  One of the main attractions in Nikko are the hot springs.  You can pay to go to one of many onsens, but you cannot just go to a pool of natural water.  It is all piped into bathing facilities.  In this respect it feels somewhat unnatural, but it was still very nice.  The water was far too hot for me to spend much time in, but it was still relaxing.  I did notice that my legs were several shades redder than normal after bathing.

The next day we visited the famous temples in Nikko.  However they cost a bit over $10 to enter and I was feeling cheap so we just stared at the entrance.  Several unspectacular pictures were taken.