Shogatsu and the Journey to Nikko.

The day before New Years, Dad, Will, and I boarded a train bound for Nikko, located about an hour and half away north of Tokyo. Nikko is famous in Japan for its many temples , the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the first Shogun of a  completely unified Japan) and natural beauty. I chose to take Dad and Will to Nikko as it was the New Year or Shogatsu. New Years in Japan is a pretty big deal (think Christmas in the U.S.) and many people celebrate it by spending time with their family and going to visits to shines and temples (called Hastumode). For our accommodations, we stayed at a mountainside inn, run by a really cool guy (whose name, I’m sad to say I have forgotten). The innkeeper told us that later that night, many people would be gathering by Tosho-gu (the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu) for hastumode. He also mentioned that would be more than happy to give us a ride. So, around 9:30 at night we departed for Tosho-gu and were dropped off. I’m glad that we got there early as, once again, the crowd of people at the shrine was overwhelming. Luckily, we were all able to get a good spot at the front of the line to go and see the main part of the shrine and when the clock struck 12 o’clock, we were let in. The mausoleum was quite magnificent and was all lit up for the New Year jubilation.  At this point, however, we were all quite chilly and didn’t stay too long (I feel bad for the people who were in the way back of the line...at the pace the line was going, they probably had to wait several hours to get in!)

Waiting in line at Tosho-gu

Tosho-gu 

The next day, we all decided to do some hiking around Nikko’s national park and take in some of the winter scenery. We started by taking a bus up a long and very, very steep mountain road and were on our way to Kegon falls. We then hiked around lake Chuzen-ji and took in the outstanding scene of the lake surrounded by mountains. Probably the most spectacular part of the day, however, was taking the bus back around the mountain road during sunset.

Kegon Falls

Ice Rock at Chuzen-ji

Beautiful Sunset at Nikko

As our journey was coming to a close, the next day the three of us took several trains back to Narita airport where I would begin my next journey to China and Will and Dad would return to America. I became a bit ill during this point in the journey and lugging a huge bag around for several hours really took it out of me so I slept the whole rest of the day at our hotel in Narita. Thankfully, I was feeling much better the next day so I said my goodbyes to Will and Dad and was off to Part 2 of my journey. I was off to the oldest continuous civilization in human history, China.