Thursday
I took the train in Nikko, arriving at about 12.30.
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| I may disagree, but it seemed fitting. |
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| my collection of self portraits in public bathrooms grows daily. |
Left my backpack at the hostel I was staying at and went and walked around the various temples and shrines, including the intense walk up something like 400 stairs to see the final resting place of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Really beautiful!
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| sleeping cat, which is terribly famous. |
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| where his actual ashes are. |
walked back through Nikko to my hostel where I read my book & drank tea for a bit in the cafe below it.
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| happiest chihuahuas in all japan |
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| welcoming |
Talked to a lady from Brussels for a while and we ended up going to take late night photos of Nikko (well, I took the photos, she chatted with me.) and having dinner together (just grocery store takeout sushi, turns out Nikko basically shuts down at about 6.)
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| nikko JR station |
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| the hostel |
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Friday
This morning BL (brussels lady, I never actually learned her name.) got the 6.15 bus to Lake Chuzenji, we went all the way to Ryuzu Falls.
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| sunrise in Nikko |
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| going up into the mountains |
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| first look at Lake Chuzenji |
From there we went our separate ways, never to see each other again! So dramatic.
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| Ryuzu Falls |
I took the bus farther up the mountain to the Sanjogahana Moor. Most beautiful place, I love a good moor.
Walked around there for a bit, went over to Senjoghara Plain and ate some chips for breakfast since at this point it was only like 10 in the morning.
Then I took a bus part way back down the mountain and walked back to the bus station that would take me back to Nikko.
This took me about 3 hours since it was a long walk dawn half the mountain and around the lake and I stopped to take heaps of photos + a few snack breaks.
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| this is all technically part of Ryuzu Falls |
I also did something I almost never do, which is take self portraits in front of people!
I took all these, and in the last photo you can see where I was in relation to probably a hundred people over the course of the time I was there. Loads of people stopped to watch me and take photos of me and I just kept on going, pretty proud of myself honestly.
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| as those people are walking towards a massive carpark, just adding to the number of people. |
On the train back to Tokyo I sat next to two men who got progressively drunker as time went past, it was awesome. No, really. They were funny and talked to me in Japanese and offered me scotch and sake (they were alternating) and little buns with fermented black beans in them and showed me their vacation photos and were super entertaining.
Made a 5 minute turnaround at my house and went to meet David & Rawleigh for dinner in Roppongi. They're from Bermuda, and David knows my grandmother.
Anyway, I'd never met them but they're both very nice, it was a really good way to end the day.
We went to this amazing Japanese place, everyone yelled a lot and all the food was in front of you and you ordered and they cooked it right there and it was awesome and entertaining as can be.
I pounded rice with the stick with a guy to make mochi, which I am the biggest fan of.
We ate these little tiny fried crabs, where you eat the whole thing like delicious chips; the most amazing yellow fin tuna I think I've ever had; some hairy crab, which was good! to my surprise I really rather enjoyed it; and tons of wonderfully cooked vegetables.
Unfortunately I didn't have anything to take photos with, but David had his iPhone and sent me these, so y'all get to see it!
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| making mochi, like a boss. |
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| we're the three death staring at the camera. |
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hope you all have a good day and a pleasant tomorrow!
