Nikko 日光

25th - 28th October

We said goodbye to our nice modern hotel room and took on the train system to head North to Nikko. The system is so well organised it’s actually really easy to find out where you need to be. The signs all in Japanese but periodically they change to English so you jut need to know the name of your train and the time it is due to leave and the rest falls into place.

Today we were on the Yamabiko 133.

The Shinkansen trains are usually on the upper level of main stations leaving the local trains at street level. Then there is the underground. Tokyo really is like SimCity with everything stacked up on each other.

It seems that there are a large number of places in Japan that were nothing but a big forest, some mountains and a few rivers until some monk turned up and declared it to be a super important scared place. Nikko is no exception as no one had ever heard of it into a Buddhist Priest named Shōdō Shōnin rocked up in the middle of the eighth century, built a bridge over the rapids of the river by summoning a couple of dragons to lie across it and established a sanctuary in the mountains. For a long time after it was considered the right of passage for any self respecting monk to lose themselves in meditation whilst trekking the woods of Nikko.

It would have stayed a sleepy little place for the rest of days had it not been for Tokugawa Leyasu (aka Mr T) wanting to have his final tomb brought to the place directly North of Edo (aka Tokyo) to look down in protection across his country forever. (I refer you back to my blog on Tokyo for more about Mr T and the Edo period)

Now people flock to this UNESCO world heritage site from all over the world to pay respect to both Monk and Shogun. However, had those two known that the Nikko Classic Station Hotel would one day be operating I think they might have picked a different spot.

The only positive things about this hotel were that it was very convenient for the train station, bus stop one was next to the station which bizarrely bypassed the massive queue that was ever present at bus stop two were the bus station was and that the double glazing was quite good at keeping the noise out. Everything else was just crap! It’s hard to pick the worst aspect but some of the stand out shockers included the breakfast which consisted of a very sparse array of food that highlighted the most basic white bread known to man with the best item available being the cold hard boiled eggs. The canteen was like something from Crossroads and was managed by a bunch of tiny sour faced women who carefully scrutinised what you put on your plate to make sure you weren’t getting too much of the nice stuff and scowled at anyone who dared leave the tiniest morsel of their tasty produce. There were signs everywhere telling guests to ‘be careful when opening toaster door tray might fall out easily’ and ‘only take food you want. no waste’ and most laughably ‘ No takeaway’.

We made the dreadful mistake of seeking out the bar on the first night (the only picture we took of the hotel) It was little more than a cupboard at the end of the corridor. We would have left straight away but the bar tender looked a bit threatening and we feared he might run after us with a broken bottle if we didn’t buy something. The beer was at least double the price than any other we had had outside of Tokyo and arrived half froth half lukewarm warm lager. Pauline dared to ask for Gordon’s gin rather than the dubious looking house special and was charge an extra couple of hundred yen for the privilege.

To add to the experience it was raining heavily when we arrived too early for check in and at this point we were really wondering why we were staying here from three nights.

We awoke the next morning to rain but it had eased off somewhat from yesterday.

We had a guide booked and after being told off at breakfast for having two eggs each we met Seiko Fukui in the lobby before heading over to bus stop one.

It was a little odd that Seiko asked us what we wanted to look at as we thought the whole point of having a local guide was that they showed you around all of the local places and old you stuff. After chatting with her on the way to bus stop 7 we realised that she wasn’t local at all and had had a two hour journey to be with us today.

Nevertheless, a plan was settled upon and she did know quite a lot of things about what we were seeing.

First there is the famous bridge made by dragons. We opted not to pay to across deciding instead to try for enlightenment by climbing the steps up to the first of many shrines.

There was a very pretty small strolling garden at the first level that we reached.

Where Seiko demonstrated some poor photography skills. Nice colour in the trees though.

Being a Saturday, the queue for the main event was ridiculous and our hearts sank when we first saw it. The value of having a guide came to the for though as Seiko waved her official tour guide pass and we were at the front of the line for buying tickets before you could say ‘Oi! Are you pushing in?’

There were more queues past the first gate though but everyone was well behaved and waited patiently as the rain continued to come down.

Beautiful carvings on beautiful building came one after another and still we ventured higher and higher up the mountain.

Pauline couldn’t manage the last set of steps the final event, Mr T’s grave. Remarkable for the fact that it has stood in this position for over 400 years especially with the amount of earthquakes that regularly occur. In fact, there was a small tremor whilst we were walking up the final flight of steps. I didn’t feel it but Pauline did.

After lunch the rain started to ease off and at Sheiko’s recommendation, we went to the emperor’s summer palace which was happily away from the huge crowds. Anonymity almost guaranteed by the fact that the site doesn’t even get a mention in TLP.

Built around the origin Edo palace between 1872 and 1899, the massive complex of buildings is very well preserved and provides real insight into how it was used whilst still active. We’d seen similar places on our travels around Japan but nowhere were we able to walk around so freely and without too many other visitors.

Beautiful internal courtyards including an underground passage for gardeners to arrive through without troubling the villa’s occupants.

Delicately painted timber sliding screens.

And superb strolling gardens.

We returned back to the Classic Hotel exhausted but happy to have spent a great day touring the cultural sights of Nikko, pleased that we had Seiko for company and particularly grateful that we didn’t have to queue anywhere!

We treated ourselves to a steak dinner at what was reported to be the best restaurant in town. It shut at eight pm so it was another early night.

The rain had stopped but it was so cold compared to where we had been travelling in the South. The half hour walk back was quiet, Nikko is a very different place once the throng of day trippers have sped back to Tokyo.

What a difference a day makes! We awoke to glorious sunshine and all was right with the world. Even Nikko station was looking the part.

We bought a day pass for the buses only to find that it was valid for two days so we could have purchased one yesterday and saved a thousand yen or so on our IC cards ( equivalent to Oyster cards). Hey ho.

Purchase of the pass was at the bus station so we missed out on the queue jumping at bus stop one. This meant that we had to stand as the bus lurched and juddered up the winding road towards Yumoto Onsen, the end of the line for a day time into the wilds of the nearby mountains and an hour away from Nikko central.

We got out of the crowded bus at the first proper view point and considered catching a cable car to the first mountain lake at Chuzen ji onsen but we’re put off by the queue and the massively overcrowded cable cars. They looked like an accident waiting to happen.

The next bus was very crowded too and we had to stand for the remaining 20 minutes of winding uphill road before reaching the top of the cable car route. We stayed on for the last stop whilst eying where we might get off for the return leg.

The scenery now was spectacular with autumn colours showing and a freshness to the air.

We finally arrived at the almost deserted end stop of Yumoto Onsen where the promise of a hot spring foot bath awaited. Sadly, like so many other places that we had visited in Japan, it was shut. We did find some nice paths around the back of the isolated village though.

And the source of the hot springs. The smell here was not so fresh though and Pauline deposited the cold hard boiled egg that she had stolen at breakfast into the nearest bin.

Mmmm, I love the small of sulphur in the morning!

On the way back down we stopped off to walk along the paths alongside impressive waterfalls.

And to admire the glorious mountain views.

Passing the lake again, we stopped for lunch and a walk along the promenade. It was all a little strange in that the place had clearly had days of destination glory and whilst plenty of people were still making it this far from the tourist hotspot of Mr T’s tomb, there was not enough money to keep attractions like these rather sad looking swan peddle lows afloat. Once no doubt wonderful hotels were looking run down and forlorn whilst restaurant business owners were resorting to standing outside of their premises hopefully waving at passing tourist buses in the hope that they might drop by and buy some bits on sticks for their lunch.

Back in town we spent our last evening at at Italian restaurant near to the hotel. We were growing tired of ramen and miso with rice by now so a bit of spaghetti bol was most welcome even though the hosts would probably have struggled to place Italy on a world map and certainly couldn’t sing along to the ice cream advert.

Our stay in Nikko was coming to an end and once again we had grown to like a place the longer we had stayed apart from the worst hotel of the trip so far that is.