Back in late September I went to Nikko for a couple of days. It's about 2 hours from Tokyo, in the mountains, and it was good to get away by myself. In summer, it's a good area for hiking and in winter it's known for skiing and ice-skating. I saw battered old hockey equipment (including CCM!) in the window of a sports store AND outside a restaurant, as a sort of street display. And in fall it's famous for the changing leaves, but I was too early to see more than a little of that.

Most especially, Nikko is famous for temples and shrines. The main one is Tosho-gu, where the first shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa, was buried. It's different from most Japanese shrines in that it's decorated with a lot of gold, more like a Chinese building than a Japanese one. But he was VERY rich, ruthless, and powerful. So, he gets a flashy shrine to surround his grave.

The shrine is also known for some famous carvings. A frieze around a stable depicicts the many stages of life as enacted by monkeys; the most notable is the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" trio. There is also a carving of a sleeping cat (Nemuri Neko) which I paid extra to see and managed to miss because I expected it to be much bigger.

The grave is in a beautiful setting, surrounded by very tall, straight cedars that reminded me of redwoods or NZ kauri. It's at the top of a long, steep flight of stairs. Also in the shrine are kegs of soy sauce, sake, etc, as royal supplies or something.

The other shrines are not as spectacular, but they are still very beautiful inside and out. They all have gates ("mon") through which one must pass to enter. Some of the gates are very simple, while others are like little (or not-so-little) buildings themselves, with alcoves containing statues of lions or dancing Buddhist devils - usually in the act of stomping on some unfortunate human while brandishing scary-looking weapons or leering down at passers-by. Some of the monks/priests give talks, but it's all in Japanese, of course, and I could only understand the demonstrations of the acoustical properties of the rooms!

The first afternoon I was there, it was a national holiday. Not a good day to visit ANY tourist destination in Japan, and especially not one within a couple of hours drive from Tokyo! It was pretty crowded. There were many tour groups. When I went back in the morning to complete my tour, I almost had the whole area to myself.

After I bought my ticket for all the shrines, the first stop was a beautiful garden of trees and shrubs. Some of the maples had a hint of red already. The carp in the pond were big and came very close - apparently, I learned later, they'll nibble food out of your hand, or just nibble on your fingers if you let them!

I was very emphatically pointed in the direction of the garden to start with. There seems to be a rule about it, and Êone of the men directing people around got very upset with an English family who blithely set off up the steps of the closest temple, above and behind the ticket office, ignoring or not understanding his sad cries of "Hello! Hello!" as he attempted to get the foreigners' attention and steer them in the right direction.

Attached to the garden is a sort of mini-museum of interesting and beautiful artifacts and paintings. In the square outside (temple and ticket office on one side, museum and garden on the other) were rows of benches. In the morning I discovered that these are for people on tours to stand sit on while they have a group photo taken with the temple in the background.

After the garden, the order doesn't really matter. The whole site covers a huge area and it's easy to get confused. That first big temple has 3 HUGE golden Buddhas, each around 4m high. (I'm guessing here.) Some of the others are very simply decorated. There are portable festival shrines stored inside, designed to be carried or pulled by many people.

After a few hours there, the place was starting to close down. I found the youth hostel and it was a quiet night - I had an 8-bed dorm to myself. Well, I had to share it with a mosquito who bit my eyelid, and I woke up looking like I'd been punched out! The place was pretty small and there was only one shower. I was summoned when it was my turn. In the morning I was woken at 730 for breakfast - scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, toast, jam, coffee...and salad??? Still, it was a nice quiet place run by a friendly and helpful family.

In the morning, as I said, I went back to see the rest of the temples, and it was much more peaceful. Then I caught a bus to Chuzenji-ko, a lake north of Nikko. The drive up a long and winding road, further into the mountains, is known for being pretty scary. Those who suffer from motion sickness would definitely hate it.

At Chuzenji-onsen I checked out the beautiful Kegon Falls. Like the Chuo railway line in Tokyo, they are famous for suicides. At the picnic area nearby I was approached by a woman who wanted to talk to me about "kami". "Hair?" I wondered, because that was the first meaning that came to mind. "Kami!" she insisted. She kept clasping her hands to her chest and then pointing at the sky. "Paper?" I was considering all the meanings of "kami" that I had picked up. "KAMI!!" she said again. "Ahhh!" I understood. "Spirit" or "god". She took a small photo album out of her purse and showed me a picture of the sun with rays of light streaming out from it and a rainbow-coloured ring around it. I figured she was some kind of religious fanatic, maybe a member of some cult. She was probably interested in either my money or my soul. I didn't want to donate either to her cause. I got away as politely as I could.

I had planned to take a bus to Ryuzu Falls and hike to Yumoto Onsen, but a typhoon was bringing black clouds that threatened rain. So I hiked along the lake shore to the falls and skipped Yumoto (next time). I had a bowl of soup instead. Good decision - just after I got to the falls, the rain came.

While I was waiting for the bus back to Nikko, two Canadian women joined the line. They were wearing shorts and t-shirts, no rain gear at all. The woman in front of me had a rain skirt, poncho, and umbrella. She handed the umbrella to the confused Canadians. I remembered enough from my Japanese lessons to confirm, "Until the bus comes?" Lucky for everyone I'd covered those words already!

That was it. When I got back to Nikko I bought some postcards, and some cream to reduce the swelling of my eyelid so I could go back to work looking relatively normal.

Copyright Ailsa Wylie 1999