Nippon no Nikko National Treasure
From the Moleskine
“You haven’t been to Nippon until you’ve been to Nikko.”
(I remember sometime last year, one of my students told me she was studying English because she was a volunteer tour guide for Nikko. I asked her what it was and she said it was one of Japan’s National treasures. It was she who first told me that phrase.)
I’m writing this from the Limited Express Tobu Line on my way to Nikko. So far, the trip doesn’t seem half bad. THen again, it is still wicked early in the day and maybe people just aren’t up yet. Oh yeah, and it’s a Sunday. I guess it’s kind of a good thing that we’re on our way out of the heart of Tokyo. Initially, when we were at Shinagawa Station, Tokyo seemed like a city, a real city with tall buildings and everything. And when were in Asakusa, I thought the same thing. Looking out the window now, it looks no different than Osaka. Maybe a few more tower thingies, but generally the same not-quite-countryside countryside. It’s all Japan.
We departed Osaka last night at 10 PM. Steve, Anna, and I met for dinner first at the Chinese place where we had our Final Firefly Sunday dinner. Mike had already gone ahead to Tokyo with his friend from home and we were gonna meet him in Tokyo.
The overnight bus was a “relax bus” — something like a coach bus but with somewhat fancier seats. I thought that it was all well and good that the seats reclined much further than regular coach buses and that there was loads more room between the rows of seats…but the actual seats themselves weren’t very comfortable. In fact, I found them quite hard. It was a bit difficult for me to fall asleep. I dozed every so often, but nothing really solid. The two rest stops we took probably didn’t help with the solid sleep thing, either. I think one of the greatest things about the bus trip was the English announcement’s literal translation of some parts. I particularly enjoyed “the light will turn off shortly after this announcement as it turns out this is a night bus” — like it was a surprise or something! And also, “This is all I have to say for now.”
We arrived this morning at about 6:15 or so, which was much earlier than expected. (I think…I vaguely remember Anna saying something about arrival time being around 7 AM.) It was pretty cold, it seemed much colder than Osaka…but now that I think about it, I think it was just ‘cuz it was morning.
We ended up killing time at the Shinagawa Station Starbucks. The only flaw to this scheme was the fact that it was an outdoor/open-air Starbucks. (Seriously. What the hell? Who thought that was a good idea?) In other words, we were still cold.
Mike finally arrived at about 7:45. We set off from that point to find a train to Asakusa. We originally thought we would take the subway, but the JR attendant suggested taking the Keikyu via the Toei Asakusa Line, this way we wouldn’t have to make any transfers. Sounded pretty five-by-five to us, so that’s what we did.
Buying tickets was something of a trip ‘cuz we didn’t see Asakusa anywhere on the map. Mike ended up asking the Keikyu Information people and we had to press a special button to get the menu we needed. I was definitely glad that I wasn’t making this trip alone ‘cuz I ain’t so sure I’d be able to navigate the trains! (Cool! We’re passing through “farm country”!) I couldn’t help buy smile when we passed Shinbashi (!) and Nihonbashi, not to be confused with Osaka’s Nipponbashi — both stations have the exact same kanji.
From Asakusa, we had to transfer to the Tobu Line (where I’m writing from now). I was starting to understand what everyone meant about transfers in Tokyo…there is so much distance between them all! It was a good thing we had some time between our arrival and the departure of the Limited Express. We stashed some of our luggage in lockers and made use of the facilities before boarding the train.
The other are pretty much passed out right now and I’m wide awake. I’m really looking forward to Nikko ‘cuz I’d been told by a lot of different people that this is an amazingly beautiful place. I sure hope it’s all it’s cracked up to be.
But yeah. So far, Tokyo ain’t so bad.
My hand started cramping not long after that, so I had to put the Moleskine away. I can’t quite write longhand like I used to. I ended up falling asleep toward the last 20 minutes of the train journey. I really liked the Tobu Line. It had comfortable seats that reclines AND lots of leg room, even when we turned the seats around so we were all together facing each other. SO much better than the relax bus!
The whole of the train journey was something like an hour and half. I wanna say we got to Nikko around 10:45 or something like that. We followed to flush of people out of the train. Anna nominated me leader ‘cuz I stayed awake to look at the maps and stuff. “I’m not the leader! I just wanted to make sure we made the transfer!” Yeah, there was a slight transfer at Shimo-Imaichi. Not a hard one, so it was all good.
We let a bunch of people pass, mainly ‘cuz we didn’t wanna get caught up in the rush, and ‘cuz we were distracted by the little igloo at the station. It had a Hello Kitty flag. My camera was buried in my bag otherwise I woulda taken a picture.
We got out of the station and went to look at the map. It was a bit hard to discern what was what and where we were…it probably didn’t help that the section we wanted to see was torn off. Eventually, we just picked a direction that seemed like maybe it was the right way and started walking. We also started passing restaurants, so we thought if anything, maybe we’ll find a place to eat.
As we continued down the street, the restaurants became more scarce, as did the people. I pointed out that there were no other tourists walking this way, so maybe we weren’t on the right track. We decided to turn around, but not before finding another igloo. Mike wanted to go in it, so we humored him. It turned out that it was gonna be a kind of tight fit, so he contented himself to just standing outside of it while we took pictures. On our walk back, we ran into a little old lady who promptly and cheerfully greeted us, followed closely by a weather exclamation: “Samui desu ne!” (”It’s cold isn’t it?”) Couldn’t argue with her there!
We ended up picking a restaurant that was across the street from the bus stop. They had a lot of choices in the window, so it seemed like a good idea. The selection of food was the usual Japanese fare, although it seems that Nikko has very good tofu ‘cuz a lot of the dishes included such. I was lame and went with ramen ‘cuz well, I was cold, and I really wanted some.
The ramen noodles were a bit different than I’m really used to. Much thinner, but it tasted fine. The broth even had some seaweed in it, the kind found in miso soup, and that was a great addition in my opinion.
After we paid and wrapped ourselves back up in our winter gear, we set out again. We’d decided that we should just take a bus since that was what everyone else seemed to be doing. Of course, it was wicked crowded. And it turned out that Steve had been to Nikko before! We were all like, “Dude, why didn’t you say something?” He said he’d tried, but honestly, none of us heard him say, “We should take the bus” when we first stepped out of the station.
The Nikko bus works just like the Kyoto bus, meaning there’s a stupid change machine before you can put in your money. I was unaware of this and accidentally put in 300 yen, instead of 270. I had to wait for change. Stupid, stupid bus money thing!
We were first greeted by a copper statue of Priest Shoto; there was also this neat copper dragon fountain in front of him, too. I ended up taking a picture of the dragon and not so much of Priest Shoto.
We walked up the little incline to the main area. On our right was Sanbutsu-doh Hall, and on the left was a lovely tea garden. There was also this incense burner in the middle and there were a few other tourists invoking the blessing. I went to do so as well to honor my grandmother mostly.
There was a line for people buying tickets and we asked Steve if it was a must. He strongly suggested it because it was something of a package deal and it would get us into some really cool places. The first order of business was to go into Sanbutsu-doh Hall. I can’t say we stayed long to really admire and appreciate the place, but there were some great statues and I was reminded of visiting Todaiji in Nara.
We followed to flow of people down this scaffolding — I guess they’re doing some renovations or some such. Behind the Hall, there was another hall thing, but there was a ceremony going on so we opted to pass up going in. I also took a snap of Sohrintoh Tower while we passed back there.
It was onwards toward the main attraction: Toshogu Shrine. It was a little slippery going up the slope towards the shrine, but there was a nice view of the mountain and I had a kick out of taking some icicle pictures. I think the Toshogu Shrine is one of the most colorful places I’ve ever been, complete with beautiful carvings on all of the buildings. (Check out the rest of my flickr to see.)
We spent a good long time wandering around the shrine. We got to see the infamous Three Wise Monkeys, the Nemuri Neko, the urn of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the beautiful gates that were abundant throughout. I could really see why Nikko was considered such a national treasure.
Unfortunately for us, we weren’t able to venture into the National Park. We wanted to see the waterfalls and the cedar avenue, but time did not allow us such an opportunity. If anything disappointed me about the trip, it was that. But, it was still a fantastic first day in Nikko.
We caught another Limited Express back and honestly, I pretty much passed out during the train ride. We had been up since 6 and walked around all day. No wonder we were all pretty beat.
We arrived back at Asakusa and since we were in the area, despite our fatigue, Mike and Anna asked me if I wanted to see Asakusa Shrine. Again, I remembered students suggesting this as a place to visit so I agreed. It was really just around the corner from where we were. I guess the huge lantern is one of the things the place is famous for. It was closing as we arrived so I didn’t get to go in or anything, but I think I got some nice pictures of the place.
It was off to the hotel thereafter. We tried to trace our way back to the Keikyu Station, but ended up accidentally passing it. We studied the train map for a while ‘cuz Mike and Anna desperately wanted to avoid making too many transfers. I think we ended up needing to make one at Nihonbashi or something, but it wasn’t terrible. There was definitely a lot of walking between trains and such, but I was incredibly happy that I didn’t experience the stories I’d heard about how there are people whose job it is to cram as many passengers into the carriage as possible. I guess that only happen at rush hour and the more popular train lines. I think we ended up sticking to the JR.
We decided to try and find the hotel before we did anything about dinner. Exiting Shinjuku Station required more map looking, but Mike and Anna were able to figure out where we needed to go. The travel agent assured Anna that the hotel was only five minutes away from the station; fat lot of good that did us since she hadn’t said which exit to take or which side — Shinjuku Station is about as big as Umeda so really, it took us a bit longer.
When we found the hotel, it seemed a little on the…shady side. It was tucked away down a dark side street and it didn’t look overly well lit. Sure, it was night…but most hotels I’d been to are at least lit up at night. The room wasn’t terrible, but compared to the room I stayed in when we went to Hiroshima last year, it was just adequate. We had passed a Mos Burger on the way, so we decided it was as good a place as any to have dinner. I know, it wasn’t Tokyo food or anything, but Tokyo isn’t like Osaka in that there is a distinct food you have to try. If anything, there was more opportunities to eat Western food than traditional food.
We parted company thereafter. Like I’d said earlier, we were all pretty tired. I was happy to be able to sleep in a real bed again, and I had the TV on playing J-dramas as I went to sleep. I will say this about the hotel — they had real Pepsi, so that was pretty cool. (I’d had one after dinner, while I was chillin’ out watching some J-drama where this chick totally kicked her possibly cheating boyfriend in the neck!! I was hella impressed!)
I think that’s it for this installment of the trip. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s exciting update of “Fight Club goes to Tokyo”!! Oh, and check out my flickr!!
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