By Day 4 of the trip we were starting to get a bit worried about the money situation and the fact that Will’s laptop was getting very low on stored power. But we had already booked for a full day tour to Nikko, the World Heritage site just outside of Tokyo, so we had to put the worrying off until we got back home. We figured if we bought anything it would be minor and we could use a card if all else failed.
After Monday’s little problems we decided to ensure we got to the pickup point well before the appointed 9am and everything left on time. There was a minor problem in that I had been placed next to a single passenger, when both of us would have preferred a double seat to ourselves. As it happened the couple in front of us failed to make the check-in time so my co-passenger moved up one row. Things were definitely starting to look up.
Two hours or so in the bus and we arrived at our first stop, the Nikko Toshogu Shrine. [Photos below show: 1. long gravel entrance to the shrine; 2. column next to the entrance depicting the Tokugawa clan crest, the Hollyhock; and 3. the main gate leading into the shrine.]
This is a beautiful little place famous for its wood carving, on the wall of a building, of the three monkeys, “see no evil, etc etc.”
A pleasant hour or so was spent wandering around the site before we headed a short distance into town for lunch, which was included in the tour. That was followed by a visit to the Tamozawa Imperial Villa, still in Nikko,
and then off to the Kirifuri Falls before the long drive back into Tokyo.
We got dropped off in a part of the city we didn’t know at all but we decided to try to find some dinner in the area before heading home. We were standing around trying to work out our directions when one of us spotted that we were outside a BicCamera store where we had been told we could find any sort of adapter. Five or so minutes later and one of our major problems had been solved. The dinner was, well, ordinary; up a very narrow flight of stairs at a small table. Cheap was its only good point.
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