the velvet train seats and Nikko

the second train we rode on for the final leg to Nikko had velvet seats. I mention this in order to make the pun in the title.
Thank you very much.

So we get into Nikko, a beautiful mountain town, and get our bearings and information from the tourist information booth. The bus takes us up to where the shrines and temples are, and we decline the awesome opportunity to pay a lot of money to walk over a bridge that's about 30 feet long. A missed opportunity, but one we'll get over. Hopefully.
As we're walking up these steps towards the shrine area, a short little man jumps out of nowhere, thrusting a map in our faces. His english is perfect, and we end up buying a map from him, because it has some great details on it. Or maybe he is just a good salesman.

We get up to the shrine area and see lots of different shrine buildings and rooms and stuff. I have to say that shrines and temples all seem relatively the same to me. Sacriligious maybe, but I have to say it. They are cool though, and pagodas are neat looking. Ok, I take it back, these places are cool. The various reliefs, paintings, gold statues, etc are pretty neat.

One cool thing at this shrine is that the famous "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys come from here.


Here's a couple pics of buildings on the temple grounds.



And this guy!



After we hit all the buildings, we managed to find this little Buddhist restaurant on the grounds of a nearby temple and proceeded to have the best meal yet. It was totally traditional, with lots of tofu prepared in different ways, small courses (about 8 of them) and green tea galore. All served by kimono wearing women who kneeled as they served us.
That could have been because they recognized us as foreign conquerors.
We ate at low tables, looking out at a gorgeous little garden.
very nice.

After lunch, we walked down little windy roads till we got back to town. We popped in and out of different little shops, walked off the main road a ways, and just looked around. We were very lucky to go into that guys shop - the woodworker - who loved dressing us up in his clothing. Hot.
He was super nice, giving us a sake cup, and spending a while with us teaching us words for all kinds of Japanese clothing. Good stuff.

We saw a very cool cemetary (Japanese, obvi) and walked through that. In front of all the tombstones there were offerings of different things, like mickey mouse cups and iced coffee, along with incense.

More on all of this later, cause I got to get going.