Tuesday and our only full day in Nikko so up and at ‘em relatively early (ok, about 8am which wasn’t too stupid). Made the most of the huge amount of choices at the hotel breakfast buffet to set us up for the day, including a bucket of coffee each and then hauled ourselves into town via the hill from, if not “Hell” then certainly its next door neighbour “Heck”. Certainly easier to walk down than up. Still a ten day camel hike though.

Bit of poking about Nikko centre whilst waiting for the bus (we checked with the hotel to make sure we’d get the right one) but there wasn't a lot to do as it was still early and most places were still shut or only just opening up. Typical of a town dedicated primarily to tourism I suppose. 

Not long to wait though before the bus turned up and were soon climbing the seemingly endless hill up to Tōshō-gū.

Right - I'll keep the history lesson short here as otherwise it'd be like talking about Henry VIII or Geroge Washington; you could go on forever. If you're interested there are links.

Basically Tōshō-gū is the shrine complex dedicated to, and final resting place of, Japan's most famous ruler Tokogawa Ieyasu, the feudal lord who became Shōgun  and de facto ruler of all Japan in 1600. His dynasty then effectively closed the country to the outside world shortly afterward and ran Japan for 250 odd years until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. If you’ve read/watched James Clavell’s “Shōgun” Lord Toronaga is basically him. Since that book was my initial inspiration for the whole Japanese obsession in the 80s it had to be on the list of things to see. And, unlike the Miura Anjin memorial in Tokyo that we spend ages trying to find (Shōgun again!) this isn’t difficult to find. At all. It’s a World Heritage site and it is bloody massive! Just goes to show what history writes for you “if you win”. (That’s an obscure Shōgun reference for the geeks out there. Not sorry).

I’ll mostly let the photos speak for themselves as, again, explaining every bit would turn this into a book. Yes there are a lot - it's a very very big site. I'll add links where applicable so you can choose how far down the informationrabbit hole you want to go. 

Firstly, after really quite a long ride up through town we were dropped off by the bus well before the site entrance. Walking up the hill (it's all "walking up the hill"!) firstly takes you to the entrance to the Rinnoji Temple and its visitors centre/ticket office. And before anyone says anything, yes I know the "Ji" bit means temple so Rinnoji Temple means Rinno Temple Temple - just deal with it; it makes the English text easier to read.

A bit more walking takes you the site entrance proper, the five-storied pagoda and, since this is as far as you can go without one, the ticket office. I think you can buy a ticket for just the main part of the site excluding the tomb and Roaring Dragon but come on - if you've dragged yourself all the way here you're going to pony up for the whole show. 

This the front gate and as far as you can get without a ticket. And less culturally but more physically important at the time, the loos are after this point! 

Once we'd had our bags and tickets checked (keeping the remaining parts for later!) and availed ourselves of the facilities (these are the only loos this side of the gate so it's a long trek back down if you get caught short later) we walked past the sacred warehouses to the first of the "Main Events" - the Sacred Stables with its world famous carving of the Three Wise Monkeys. Although it's not the origin of it, this carving is supposed to have popularised the Buddhist saying "See no evil, Speak no Evil, Hear no Evil". 

Tracey had a go copying the appropriate pose that she'd spotted everyone else doing for their photos. A joke suggested itself concerning the long-term possibilities of her keeping that pose, but I took the hint from the second monkey and kept my trap shut. Not sure a hospital visit caused by being beaten unconscious with my own camera would have been covered by our travel insurance.    

We wandered around this part of the site for a good half an hour, shot a tonne of photos and then headed up (how else!) past the Bell Tower and through the famous Yomeimon Gate (mon = gate: again, it's recursive). This is just one of the National Treasures on this site and the detail and decoration is fairly mind blowing; they didn't exactly just slap on a coat of Dulux Brilliant White and call it a day... 

One of the (many) details that isn't immediately obvious is that the Yomeimon gate has one pillar that has been deliberately decorated upside-down. This means that the whole site is never “complete” which is deemed unlucky. Can you spot it? Because we coudn't for quite a while. May or may not have ear-wigged a tourist guide in the end.

Spoiler alert, it’s the left one on the right block at the back. 

Again, much wandering about and shooting a million photos each. This part of the site also houses the Roaring Dragon hall but we didn't realise that at the time - we visited later though. 

Once we shot the Yomeimon and Karamon gates from every conceivable angle we moved on to the next National Treasure - little Nemurineko (lit "Sleeping Cat") who guards the pathway to the Inner Shrine. The Wikipedia article says the sculptor HIdari Jingorō: 

"loved cats and was fascinated by cats. Jingorō spent eight months in seclusion to refine his knowledge and technique in wood sculpturing. He spent the majority of his time studying, sculpturing, and carving wooden cats that appeared lifelike in various shapes. (His goal was) to carve and sculpture lifelike cats by making "utmost efforts in the future to create a new style in the field of sculpturing".

I know sod all about scupture or carving but I know he did a bloody good job; it looks like he could wake up at any moment to protect his master. There's a sparrow carving on the reverse of the gate and currently they co-exist so there is peace in the world. Nice eh?

Once past the famous little feline guardian it's a long long and very steep trek up 207 stone steps to the inner shrine. Believe me, we felt every one of them. According to the sign, the steps are single blocks of stone and the ballustrades are carved from single blocks too. Amazing what you can achieve if you rule an entire country and own everything and everyone in it. 

Completely exhausted, we eventually reached the top and waited for a bit to get our breath back. To be fair it wasn't that we were particularly unfit - everyone looked knackered by the time they got to this point. Once we were sure we weren't going to need CPR we continued around the Inner Shrine and Inukimon Gate (not a Tokugawa Shōgun? Then you're going through here mate) to the tomb of the great man himself.

The tomb itself hasn't been opened since his remains were laid to rest here in 1617. Apparently they were moved here in the year after his death from his initial interrment site at Kunōzan Tōshō-gū in Shizuoka. But neither site will open their tombs so it's not 100% sure. Whatever the situation, the whole thing is mightily impressive and a fitting memorial to Japan's greatest and most famous ruler. 

Once more, shot the place from every angle imaginable, in RAW, HDR, panoramas etc etc until the cameras were complaining and it was time to go. Bought a few souvenir Nemurineko keyrings while we were here for good measure and then it was back down the endless stairway. Easier on the legs on way down but a lot more nerve wracking!

Once we got back down to Nemurineko again we had a look round the nearby Oratory (shoes off and strictly no photos) then tracked across to the Roaring Dragon* hall. The ceiling inside the hall has a huge dragon painted on it and when you stand in just the right spot and make a noise (hitting sticks together for example) the echo is incredible. You’re not allowed to take photos of it unfortunately and it was impossible to do the cough and shoot trick that I used in the Sistine Chapel either…they were really on it! Some naughty people have filmed it though - click here for one example (the effect is demonstrated from 3:00). You can hear the effect on the video but its much more impressive in real life.

People have studied the effect in a surprising amount of detail too although I suspect that, like explaining a joke, it kind of ruins it in the process. Much better to believe that the dragon is actually roaring!

After we'd spent hours and took tens of gigabyes of photos in the main Tōshō-gū site we had a bit of a detour on the way back down through the Art Museum gardens which were very pretty especially at this time of the year and then back up via a side stairway to the main Tōshō-gū Museum. 

And of course there was a Chrysathemum Competition going on. Really must be a popular flower eh? Certainly there was some rather intense discussion going on between the judges and some of the exhibitors. I'm sure it was all friendly.

Ok...I'm fairly sure it was fairly friendly. 

Quick restorative coffee and sandwich break in the busy museum café (we'd been at this for hours after all) and then we then decided on a VERY long walk back down through the site and then through Nikko town. Yes of course we could have caught the bus but who does that?

Sensible people that are not us, that's who. 

There were throngs of tourists going the other way by this point and we were glad we'd got to the site early. It was busy enough at 9:30am, had got very crowded indeed by the time we left around lunchtime and I reckon it would have been impossible to move by mid afternoon. 

Brief photo opportunity as we passed the Shinkyō Bridge (another recursive description for you there) which did look extraordinarily pretty. Unfortunately, despite also being extraordinarily expensive to buy a ticket to stand on the actual bridge, there was a bloody great queue so we contented ourselves taking picture of the bridge instead. Anyway, I think it looks prettier with the bridge in your photo...

We walked all the way down the very long and very steep main street towards town and on the way unlocked another achievement; getting new His-And-Her's yukata. Not a million miles from the bridge we spotted a proper old school outfitters clearly advertising them and went for it. Straight away the manager (owner?) pounced on us and informed me that they "have Big Size". Yep, cheers mate! Ok diet starts when we get back to the UK.

Honestly though we had a phenomenal time trying on a bunch of different sizes and styles while I systematically destroyed his native language one sentence at a time. We left half an hour later with a nice blue number with a Shogi piece design and a red belt for me and a green floral number and a yellow belt for Tracey. Not exactly cheap but a bloody sight cheaper than buying them at home and the belts especially were way longer, wider and generally just better. And the staff were genuinely lovely. 

If you fancy going to the shop, their website is http://www.nikko-warakudo.com

Eventually got back to the town square and since it was only mid afternoon we decided to go see the Kirifuri Falls. The bus goes from the centre and it didn't seem that far. Soon we were driving through the countryside (by coincidence up the "Hill of Heck") and were soon dropped off next to the woods and the trail through them to the look-out point.

It is all very much like the walk from the Powerstation to Cora Lin in New Lanark if you’ve ever been. No? Well, a blast from the past for me anyway! Being honest again however, the falls are lovely and all but the viewpoint is too far away to see them properly so it was a tad underwhelming. Did we miss something?! Answers on a postcard to the usual address…..

(Later note - apparently you can get a much closer and a much better view from another location but it's a lot further on than where we went. Oh well, live and learn...)

Back to the bus stop and back to town then. By the way, really not sure about the signs at the bus stop saying not to feed the monkeys. We didn’t see anything remotely resembling a monkey so…..I’m sorry what now?

Once back in town what followed was a few hours of utter and complete nonsense. 

We dragged ourselves up and down the main street to the top of town retracing and re-retracing and then re-re-retracing our steps looking for a specific shop we’d seen earlier, to buy a specific Nemurineko souvenir for my Japanese teacher and her family. This would have been all well and good if the main street was flat.

Which. It. Is. Not.

At. All.

Welcome to Step Aerobics, Nikko Style! We did eventually find it before we actually expired from exhaustion but next time? Take a photo and use your GPS you numpties!

A bit more mooching about in the various shops we'd walked past looking for "The One" and then up the Hill of Heck to the hotel. Via Family Mart’s sake selection again of course. Although this time minus Captain Stompy doing her chuntering and disappearing act and "The Tension".

By the way, no we couldn’t have caught the bus we'd used earlier as it stops at the back of 4pm. Nope, no idea why either. And also no idea why one of the houses was absolutely covered in Christmas decorations. We saw it last night all lit up (but there was chunterage so no photos) and it looked like a transplant from one of Essex’s Competitive Festivity Roads. It’s not even November - calm down! 

Hotel for buffet tea and a long and genuinely interesting conversation with Masanori and Yumiko Fujihashi from Chiba. To be fair, mostly with Masanori San as he initiated it in English and then we carried on in a mixture of Japanese and English for ages. Yumiko actually apologised for him interrupting our tea in much the same way Tracey has to apologise a lot for me. She needn't have apologised though - it was all good. Masanori San is an Navy man, now retired and we chatted about Brexit amongst a lot of other things. I said I thought it was a stupid idea and he agreed and was a bit incredulous that we were going ahead with it. He thought Japanese companies would pull out. He’s not wrong either but 仕方がないね。

Not sure he was impressed with my choice of melon soda either and said it wasn’t good for you. No? Really? What could be bad in a drink that looks like a urine sample from The Incredible Hulk?

I explained Irn Bru. I showed him pictures. 

Fairly sure he turned the same colour as melon soda at the thought. I got warned about diabetes. (Jesus. Yes alright I get it. Not related to the guy in the Yukata shop by any chance Masanori San?!) Not one to back down in the face of sugar however I doubled down and had some melon ice cream for good measure. Nearly went all in and dumped that into the melon soda as I'd seen on the menu in Aomori's BariBari but I think he might have wrestled me to the floor for my own good if I had :-) .

Anyway, lovely evening and group shots taken by them and us. Once again いちご、いちえ。

(Later note: I do need to apologise if he ever reads this. He actually sent me the group shot photos the day we were flying back and I missed them until January due to the sheer volume of emails I had on my return. まさのりさん、本当に大変申し訳ございません。失礼したくなかったです。I've emailed him back now - let's see if I get a reply.)

And so another evening progressed, with some inevitably, into a long long soak in the bath, Netflix and sake. What, you were expecting a long moonlit hike in the woods perhaps?

Yes the generator was still going. 

*On a geeky point it's marked on the map as "Crying Dragon" but the Kanji for the noise an animal makes 鳴 (Naku) is always the same so you  interpret it accordingly. Dog=Bark, Cat=Meow, Dolphin>..whatever the hell sound a dolphin makes**, etc. 

**Yes that is a nod to Bill Bailey's "Parliament Square". Well done.