Sun More Nikko

... as I'd never have found the place otherwise. Got settled in, and donning my yukata, headed for the bath. Ahhh, I could get used to this.<br><br>But, I was going to talk about Toilets. For those of you who have never experienced a Japanese toilet, think lots of buttons. There's a button to warm the seat. There's a button to spray a bit of water on your backside (and another button to turn ...

... gestern aufgemacht, einen der ach so beruehmten Tempel und Schreine Nikkos zu besuchen. War ja auch sehr schoen... aber sonst gibt`s kaum etwas, dass junge Leute wie unser eins sehr ins Staunen versetzen koennte... (mal abgesehen von der schoenen Natur... wenn wir halt nur mehr Freude am Wandern haetten... ;)<br><br>Unser Jugendhostel war eher... naja. Ich wuerde sagen, das beste daran war das Japanische Bad. Das ist schon was feines, so eine ...

Note to self: Don't create passwords with strange characters when you're going to have to use a foreign keyboard...<br><br>Returned to the ryokan for dinner and met some of the other guests. Two couples from Australia and one from Germany. Had (an amazing) dinner with the Ozzies. Eventually I'll get photos up, but think fish, rice, sashimi ...

... Dorf (95 000 EW) an.<br>Unser Youth Hostel war nicht allzu schwer zu finden, ist aber im Vergleich zum Khaosan in Tokyo, ein RICHTIGES Youthhostel, wie mans sich schon eher vorstellt... ein bisl abge****t halt XD aber die Hosts sind echt nett, ein altes Ehepaar. Und wir haben seit gestern abend schon mehr Japanisch gesprochen als die letzten 10 Tage in Tokyo ;D<br><br>Heute gehts mal auf Tempeljagt. Hier solls echt schoene Exemplare geben. Also ist fuer ...

... hiked up the hill toward the temple and just enjoyed the scenery. The moist environment mixed with the pine tree forest makes for some really beautiful areas around Nikko. Different varieties of moss coat the forest floor and grow up and around the trees. If you have ever seen the forest scenes from "Princess Mononoke" it sort of reminded me of that. <br><br>The temple was interesting and quite large. I looked around it for the better ...

... was its roar. The main hall of Toshogu was boring and I skipped the Sleeping Cat carving and Ieyasu's tomb, because I had to buy an extra ticket for them. The last important place to visit was Taiyuin temple, which is Iemitsu's tomb. It was simpler and more peaceful than Toshogu and I liked it.<br> <br>The ticket for 2 shrines and 1 temple cost only 1000 yen and I think the price is ...

We left Tokyo on a train, headed North 2 hours to Nikko. We walked the 20 minutes to our hostel, which is in the woods near a river and walking trails. We were going to stay a 3rd night but the lodge was booked up so we decided to plan out the rest of our trip and only stay 2 nights there. <br><br>We have been buying breakfast foods from convience stores to save some money and we walked to the bus station for tourist ...

... mainly of birds, but we also saw the famous monkeys hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. We went inside two of the halls where we saw beautiful carved and painted ceilings and a room with a dragon painted on the ceiling. When you stand under the dragon and clap it echoes, but only under its head. They say the dragon is roaring. Next we went to Futaarasan Shrine, which was red, more modern and less impressive. <br><br>Our last stop was ...

... and hear no evil derived). We could not take pictures inside the temples. But outside of course. You could smell incense burning and there were buddhist monks to explain what each temple was about. Emi and I took our fortunes and hers was good and mine was not so good so I tied it to the rope like you are supposed to to get rid of the bad fortune. I was then shown how these praying bracelets had a ceramic ball on them and in a tiny little hole if you looked thru you could see your god ...

... like the cheap tasteless **** that you get in the US. This stuff is a full meal, complete with freeze dried sausage, hot sauce, sometimes corn and other stuff in it. It also is less than 2 dollars. Which is awesome. I'm scared to try to decipher the fat and salt content in it, purely because it will literally still my beating heart (with the cholesterol and high blood pressure this stuff is probably giving me, it'll kill me). We wanted to do some more exploring, so we went up to the ...