2 Days in NIkko

Summer vacation has come and gone, but in its passing new memories were formed. Vacation started on a Thursday, needless to say we all wanted to cram as much stuff into 1 week as we could and so bright and early I left my house, setting out for a little town called Nikko. Nikko is about 2 1/2 hours from Tokyo and is famous in Japan for its temples and beautiful scenery. The picture of the REALLY big temple (I tried to stand as far back as possible and still couldn't get the whole thing in the photo) is Rinno-ji Temple. It is the largest of the temples in Nikko. Inside the temple is a large statue of Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of the Western Paradise, on its right, Senju Kannon, the goddess of mercy and on the left by Bato-Kannon, who is known as the protector of animals. All three are lacquered in gold and date back to the early part of the 17th century. All of the temples were truly beautiful. At the bottom of the hill, before we got to the temples was the Sacred Bridge, the bridge was cool, though none of us wanted to spend the money to walk across it! Though really, what I like the most was the vivid blue water the flowed underneath it, it almost looked as though someone had been dropping gallons of blue cool-aid into it! While we were going through our first temple of the day, we kept hearing what sounded like fighting going on, turns out there was some sort of practice going on, I took one photo, but didn't want to be disrespectful, so after watching them for a couple of minutes we quietly moved on. There were so many things going on and I took so many pictures it was hard to decide which ones to put up here, so there are kind of a lot! Oh, and anyone who is doing a lot of traveling and is looking for a fairly inexpensive place to stay that has a cool staff and a good vibe should definitely check out the Nikko Park Lodge, its run by some 2 guys, one is a Zen monk and he does a yoga class every morning, they also serve a vegan dinner every night! So we were in Nikko for only two days, and we tried to fit in as much as possible, we went back to the temples on Friday morning and then headed out the Kegon falls. Kegon falls is the country's most famous waterfall and is what attracts many visitors to Nikko every year. The photos I have up here are from a hike we did in the mountains about the waterfall and lake. As usually, it was pretty hazy that day, so the pictures aren't as clear as I like them to be, then again maybe it just adds to the scenery... who knows! I was a little sad to leave on Friday night, while I was really tired and my feet hurt from all of the walking, there was something about that place that was very peaceful... NOT like Tokyo! Coming back to reality on Saturday and all the people was also a nice surprise though, I think it is good to have a little bit of everything in one's experiences.