Uenohara Yamanoie Minakami-machi

Adam and I traveled to nikko. First we had to master the trains. The involved taking an express train to Yokohama where we switched to a local JR train to Tokyo. Then we used our passes for the Shinkansen to utsonimiya. Finally we took the nikko line from there to Nikko itself. And except for a really crowded commuter train in yokohama, all went...

Oi oi!
Hoje fomos a um lugar lindo chamado Nikko. Saímos cedo de casa, pegamos o trem bala e lá fomos nós. Com o passe que compramos (ver http://www.japanrailpass.net/) dá vontade de andar por todo o país! Outra grande curiosidade era conhecer o trem bala. Ao entrarmos no trem vimos que ele é todo direito, super confortável, como tudo o qu...

since my hostel is in asakusa district in tokyo, and i don't care for grotesquely large cities that much, and asakusa's train station has a limited express to Nikko, i decided to go bright and early on the 6:20 train.... side note: i've noticed 'express,' 'limited express,' and 'semi-express' and all of them stop an awful lot regardless of their...

It was our first time to visit Kamimiharada Kabuki stage, which was built in the 1897. It is the oldest Kabuki Stage which has the rotation system.

The village contains only 162 families and it is them who maintain such a precious heritage.

I strongly recommend you visit there, though the stage opens only once a year on Novem...

und weiter geht es...

Nach 2,5 Stunden hatten wir den kleinen Ort Nikko erreicht. Es gibt auch eine private Zug-Line (TOBU) von Tokyo aus - diese benoetigt nur 1,5 Stunden. Wir benutzen aber "JR Linien". Vom Bahnhof haben wir dann ein Taxi ins Hotel genommen. Wir haben unser Gepaeck abgestellt und sind zu Fuss zur Tempel-Anlage gelaufen...

Today was the first day we left Tokyo, at least for the day. We were going up to the town of Nikko which is known as a major site for the Shinto and Buddhist religion. The ancient shrines allowed Nikko to be considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Coincidentally my roommate's name is Nikko. He'd probably do all the stuff that we were doing toda...

We had bought Japan Rail Passes for 7 days so were planning on using them at this point therefore we caught the subway to Tokyo station to exchange the "vouchers" bought in Singapore for actual tickets (this is to ensure only tourists can get them as they are a "bargain" compared to having to pay for fares on each of the train journeys).
Nikko, Kanto, Japan jermdixon

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?<...

...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 ei...

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 geplan...