Onsenyado Shikitei Katashina-mura

... the dragon's mouth, you can hear kind of a sonic echo sound (like the dragon is "roaring"). You don't hear this anywhere else in the hall. We saw a few women who wrote kimonos I guess to take some nice photos with the ancient buildings. We also saw a couple that looked like they just got married. The last complex we visited was Futarasan-jinja. It was less crowded so it had more of a peaceful feel. There were a couple of ...

Toured the temples at Nikko today. Very impressive, but the fact that everything was in Japanese (no English) and I don't know much about Buddism, it was really a matter of walking around and admiring these cool buildings. I bought a picture book rather than trying to take a bunch of amateurish photos - maybe I can get my daughter to translate?

Because of this, touring the site only ...

...oder wir zu ihm.

Tja, jeder, der eines Tages vor hat, Japan zu erkunden, der kann getrost einen grossen Bogen um Nikko machen, ausser man steht auf Pensionistenstadt und absolut totes Nachtleben. Eins muss man dem kleinen Oertchen lassen, es gibt echt schoene, gruene Waelder, Berge und einen sehr netten Fluss. Dort haben wir auch ein schoenes Plaetzchen zum Zeit totschlagen gefunden, weil`s ja sonst nichts gibt.

Wir haben uns ...

Note to self: Don't create passwords with strange characters when you're going to have to use a foreign keyboard...

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 ...

Nun, gestern haben wir schweren Herzens mein geliebtes Tokyo hinter uns gelassen und haben unsere erste Shinkansenfahrt gen Nikko angetreten.
Es gab ein paar Zeitprobleme, allerdings fahren diese Zuege so ca. alle 20 min, darum war das dann auch nicht wirklich ein Problem. Allerdings kamen wir genau wie vorhergesagt, jedoch nicht wie geplant irgendwann nach 6, also dann, als schon finster war, in der menschenleeren Kleinstadt... naja, im Vergleich zu ...

Today I went on my first outing on my lonesomen (without the aid of my guide Toshimi). I decided to go Nikko, a town north of Tokyo which features an interesting temple, a beautiful lake, and a fresh mountain air experience. After a little confusion at the train station I finally got on the right train which would take me north of Tokyo and toward my destination. Half of the fun of using the train as transportation is you get to see a ...

As the proverb goes, Don't say, "fine" until you visit Nikko." Was it so fine? That was the question bringing me to Nikko. Nikko is far from Tokyo and it takes more than 2 hours to get there. I took a long distance night bus from Nagoya, arriving at Tokyo at 6 in the morning and it was enogh to make it to the Tobu train from Asakusa at 7:10, arriving at Nikko 9:20 by rapid-transit train ...

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.

We have been buying breakfast foods from convience stores to save some money and we walked to the bus station for tourist ...

... y le asaltan por el camino. Al final acaba matandolos a todos. Habia bastantes saltos desde las alturas, luchas con espadas y patadas al aire. Como las peliculas.


En la entrada nos dieron un cuadrado de papel, que no sabiamos para que era, hasta que descubrimos que la gente ponia dinero en el centro, lo enrollaba y se lo tiraba a los actores cuando terminaban la actuacion, como a modo de propina. Con el dinero que nos costo la entrada, yo acabe tirandoles el ...

... me cogio. No se por que, aqui no utilizan senas para explicarte las cosas. Son un poco inexpresivos. La senyora nos sonreia y era muy amable, pero no movia las manos en absoluto.
Cerca de la tienda habia una estatua de un monje, Priest Shodo. Junto a el habia una fuente con un dragon. Por lo visto, los dragones representan poder en la religion Shinto.
Cuando llegamos al precinto donde esta el templo, yo descubri una guia con un grupo de viajeros como nosotras, asi que ...