After a relaxing afternoon/evening the day before, we got up pretty early from our “mountain lodge” and dumped all our luggage at the train station coin-op locker. The station attendent was clearly relieved that the foreigner:s only question was “where are the lockers?”, and in Japanese.

We then purchased a two-day unlimited bus pass for the Nikko area, and took the bus up to a Shingon Buddhist temple. This temple was built 1200 years ago, by the person who brought this sect (which is basically the Tibetan form of Buddhism) to Japan. Since it was relatively early in the morning, and it was lightly drizzing, the place was both nearly deserted and had a sort of misty romantic atmosphere. We enjoyed walking around this peaceful complex.

After that we walked to the famous Nikko shrine to the first Tokugawa Shogun. This was a mad house, with many tour groups and packs of school children, quite a contrast the quiet serenity of the place we had just left. The shrine was built by 14,000 artisans in the 1600s, and I feel it is a bit overdone, as if it was trying too hard to convince us of the power and greatness of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Still, we saw the famous hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkey wood carvings, and we can say we went there.