We take a weekend trip to Tokyo-visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art (where we see the 2007 Tokyo Photography competition) and a Kabuki performance. The next day, we stop by to visit nearby Nikko. The temples here are a little more different than ones we've previously visited. They're more detailed in their colours and carvings, and they'r...

We spent 4 days exploring Nikko and the surrounding area. Nikko is NW of here, directly north of Tokyo, up in the mountains of central Honshu, towards Nagano and the "Japanese Alps."  It's a beautiful town with a rich history beginning in ~750 CE with the Buddhist priest Shodo. It again became famous when Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Shogun who uni...

There's a current advertising slogan-- Nikko is Nippon -- spotted on billboards and trains throughout Tokyo. Spectacular pictures of the small city are shown and they entice people to want to visit the mountainous town with lakes, classic temples and shrines, wood-carving shops, museums and enjoy the slower pace of life. Nippon, I've been told, ...

Ok for once Pete's actually letting me write an entry (he's actually cooking) so here goes....... We arrived in Nikko, originally planning a 9 night stay but after realising that there's not all that much to do there after the shrines and temples and most people only make it a day trip we decided to shorten it to 5 nights. We were staying at the...

Nick had told me prior to my leaving Brazil that we would be spending a weekend in Nikko. Nikko is one of Japan's most popular tourist destinations because of the history and beautiful shrines/temples there. There are two mausoleums there. They house the first and third Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu respectively Nikko is up in the mounatains and known ...

July 9, 2006 Sunday Well...after being a bum on Saturday, I went to Nikko with Frances and her friend Mika on Sunday. I am getting everything in before I leave. THe train out wasn't too bad. Only about 2 or 3 hours. We went a little to far though so it took a bit longer. It was a little rainy though at Nikko so the weather could have been nicer,...

So I've made it safely to Japan and the most diffcult thing I:ve had to do so far is type on a japanese keyboard. It's actually a qwerty keyboard (the kind we use in the US) except it has a button that begins to convert your typing into Kanji charachters where the space button is. Anyways, the flight was pretty good, I actually slept and had no ...

Cherry Blossoms We went to Nikko to see the cherry blossoms, which bloom only once a year during April. On the way to Nikko, we noticed a park (Yaita Park) that had a lot of beautiful cherry blossoms so we stopped for a look. Wow! What a gorgeous place. It looked like something you see in a picture book. There were many locals with their familie...