With only one full day in Nikko, we were up early to visit the UNESO World Heritage temple complex; it was 1300Yen, just over £9 GBP for entry, which isn’t too bad really considering there are 103 buildings and structures to see here! These buildings make up the Toshogu Shrine, Rinnoji Temple, Taiyuinbyo Mausoleum and the Futarasan Shrine.
We first visited the Shoyoen Garden that is attached to the Rinnoji Temple Treasure house, extremely beautiful with the autumn leave all out on show and little bridges crossing the lake.
Rinnoji Garden
We then visited the Rinnoji temple itself, the temple is currently under construction which is not due to finish until 2021! However you can still look around inside, it is just the outside of the structure which is affected; they have cleverly covered the construction work with tarpaulin showing the temple as it should be. Rinnoji is considered to be the most important temple in Nikko as it was founded by the a Buddhist Monk, Shodo Shonin, who first introduced Buddhism to Nikko. Shonin also founded nearby Futarasan Shrine, which we visited later in the day.
Inside the Rinnoji were three enormous gold Buddha’s, extremely striking but unfortunately no pictures allowed inside. Here we both bought an animal talisman, I received a safety frog, which travellers carry with the intent of returning safely home, very apt I thought!
We then headed into the main temple complex, absolutely beautiful setting, the whole complex is surrounded by forested land with water running constantly through it, there are almost mini waterfalls dotted everywhere. The main complex houses the Toshogu shrine, which we visited next, it was extremely ornate and extravagant, such extravagance in Japanese structures is quite rare, simplicity usually rules. Some of the carvings in here were fantastic! I especially liked the Three Wise Monkeys “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” dotted around, In Japan these monkeys symbolise the golden rule, you should always treat others as you would like to be treated 🙂
Three Wise Monkeys
It was still absolutely freezing, so cold we we’re both feeling a little miserable! Terrible I know, being surrounded by all these amazing sights! Anyhow we found a little cafe selling creamy coffee for just 200 Yen, obviously we had two cups each, rude not to really!
All warmed up we attempted to walk in the direction of Lake Chuzenjiko, seems our map was in no way to scale and our calculations somewhat out…so we finally resigned ourselves to the fact we’d have to turn around and head back to Nikko tourist information center. Here we managed to get a walking tour map, much better! We started off on the Kanmangafuchi Abyss route, lovely little route down tiny little streets with traditional housing, gorgeous. This little wander became quite a venture once the sun started setting…and made it just to the abyss as it got dark! No lighting around there so I’m glad Tommy has a torch with him, such a clever. It was good to see the Bake Jizo as they had been something on my hit list! They were really cool and all slightly different, their name means ghost because the number of them seem to change depending where you see them, suggesting that some may be ghosts!
Poped back to the hostel and met our new room mate, by coincidence he is from the Philippines, our next stop, so got lots of hints and tips from him regarding food, where to visit etc etc.
Had dinner at the same place as last night, Tommy was determined to have the Ramen I had yesterday! No menu mishaps this time 🙂
Ramen!
Im Just a Girl in the World 