Earlier this week we realized that our time here in Tokyo is almost over. We have been to many or most of our “must-see” sights in the city so we booked a spur-of-the-moment overnight trip to the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Nikko, about a two hour train ride north from Tokyo. The town is known for two important Shinto shrines and the Rinnoji Buddhist temple and is the possible burial place of shogun Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu. (More on that later). One of the first sights to see is the vermillion red Shinkyo Bridge, a wooden bridge built in 1636 to bring visitors across the Daiya River to the shrine and temple complexes on the other side.
Nowadays there is a modern road bridge with a crosswalk to take you to the World Heritage Area. The first temple we came to was the Buddhist Rinno-ji temple. This temple was founded by Shodo Shonin, a Buddhist monk and saint who came here from Nara in 766 in order to bring Buddhism to this region.
The shrine is known for its “Three Buddha Hall”, with three very large gilded Buddha statues showing the sage in different incarnations. Inside the temple I tried my luck again and paid for a fortune. This time, it read: “By and by your fortune will be better. But go steadily, or you’ll fail. If you have a wish, don’t be irritated, or you’ll fail. Marriage proposal: be patient, or it will be broken. Travel: no problem. Overall, your Fortune: Fairly Good.” Well, well, well...things are looking up for me!
The day we arrived was the 8th of April and we were again able to celebrate the birth of the Buddha by pouring ama-cha over the statue. Thanks to our tour with Takakao, we knew what we were supposed to do.
We gave ourselves plenty of time to explore the Toshogu Shinto shrine. Many of the structures here are considered Japanese national treasures, including the five-story pagoda. The original 1650 pagoda burned down and was replaced by this one in 1818. Each of the five levels represents an element - earth, water, fire, wind, and the void/nothingness.
The nearby Yomeimon gate is the most ornate and richly decorated gate in Japan. Up close you can really see the detail that went into its creation. With over 508 carvings it is said that you could look at it all day and never get bored.
Well...I don’t know about that. What with all the scrolling people do on TikTok I'm not sure modern-day folks have the same attention span as a 17th-century shogun. But there were clever carvings throughout the shrine for anyone paying close attention. The three monkey motif (hear/speak/see no evil) was carved above the stable.
A small sleeping cat rests above the door to the open-air staircase (more than 200 stairs! Trust me, I counted them going both ways!) that leads to the Inner Shrine Pagoda -- the final resting place of the shogun Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Or is it truly his final resting place? There is some controversy about whether the remains of the shogun are actually here at Nikko. When he died in 1616, he was originally buried at a mountain shrine near the city of Shizuoka, at Kunozan Toshogu Shrine. Supposedly a year later his grandson relocated his remains here in Nikko (closer to Edo) to ensure that Ieyasu received his due reverence at the more-visited site and to strengthen the Tokugawa shogunate’s authority. A sign here at Nikko states that the grave has never been opened since the Shogun was interred here in 1617, so how do they even know for sure if they never checked on him? Regardless, we have no plans to visit Shizuoka on this trip, so I’m choosing to believe that we did indeed visit the correct tomb.
We were getting a little bit “shrined-out” and my knee was complaining after so many stairs so we only walked up to the entrance to Futarasan shrine, but didn’t go inside. And anyway, we had an hourlong bus ride ahead of us to get to our hotel for the night.
Mistakes were made - we probably should've stayed the night in Nikko but we booked at Chuzenji lake instead. It was an hour by bus from Nikko to our hotel, and unfortunately we discovered too late that the lake ferry wasn't open for the season yet and the Akechidaira cable car that gives great views of the mountains was closed for repair. We tried to stop in at Kegon waterfall and it, too, was underwhelming. If you look with a magnifying glass you will see just a trickle of water cascading down.
But we did get to see a couple of Japanese macaques hanging out just near the path to the waterfall so that made the detour worth it!
On our last trip we stayed at a traditional ryokan inn, and after sitting and sleeping on the floor for two nights we had kind of decided that one ryokan stay per lifetime was enough for us. But we kind of accidentally booked another one for our Nikko trip -- even though the hotel did not have the word "ryokan" in the description, it was very similar to one. On check-in we were each given a yukata and slippers to wear. Our room was western-style but with a tatami mat area. At least we had a chair to share and did not have to sleep on the floor. It had a nice view down to the lake below, and swallows were building their nests along the eaves so that was fun to watch.
We had booked a set course meal at the hotel for dinner (good thing too, as this time of year there really weren't any restaurants open within walking distance). Luckily the dinner was excellent and the drinks were self-serve. We were also able to use the onsen hot bath that was at the hotel, so it was a very relaxing stay, overall.
If someone was asking my advice, though, I would only recommend staying in Lake Chuzenji in the fall -- the hillsides surrounding the lake were teeming with maple trees and I am sure this place would be extra special at that time of year. Otherwise, at any other time of year I would recommend staying in Nikko town just for convenience to the restaurants, transportation, and tourism sights. I mean, even the big sign next to Lake Chuzenji is telling us we probably should have stayed in Nikko.
We left the hotel right after breakfast on Thursday morning so that we could catch an early bus back down the mountain and do a bit more sightseeing in Nikko before catching our train back to Tokyo. We ended up at the very beautiful Kanman-ga-fuchi Abyss. The word "abyss" makes it sound much more terrifying than it really is. It is just a gorge with the Daiya River running through it.
The name wasn't the only terrifying thing about this place. In addition to signs warning about the danger of leeches in the area (!!!) there were also these nightmarish bear warning signs. The bears here in Japan are no joke and this past year there were 238 encounters with humans that resulted in injuries and sadly 13 people have died after being attacked. Now we understand why so many hikers on the busy Mount Takao trail were wearing bearbells.
The gorge was formed about 7000 years ago when Mount Nantai, a nearby volcano, erupted. In the 1600s a monk built a small temple here because the sound of the water against the rocks sounded like a mantra being chanted.
There are supposed to be about 70 or so jizo statues lining the pathway. The flood that happened here in 1902 washed many of the statues away or damaged them. Legend has it that every time you try to count the statues you’ll get a different number.
We spent an extra 1000 yen (six US dollars!) to upgrade our return train seats to the club cafe car at the end of the express Spacia X train. With big windows and the clear glass partition to the caboose cockpit we were able to take in some lovely sunny views of the countryside.
The Tobu railway has been running an express route to Nikko for over a hundred years, and the Spacia X limited express gets you to your destination in style. While it doesn’t reach Shinkansen speeds, it is a very pleasant and direct way to get between Tokyo and Nikko.
We were on a schedule to get back to our apartment because Kevin had booked us a table at the Blue Note Tokyo. A popular Japanese jazz trio (H ZETTRIO) was playing with a visiting Korean trio (Yun Seok Cheol trio).
We made it to the club with time to spare and we were absolutely amazed by the skill level of all six of the musicians. There’s definitely some world-class jazz here in Tokyo. We're really glad we've been able to see a couple of great shows while we've been here!
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