nothing to prove

monkey business

The best thing to do night before you have to leave the next day for a weekend excursion to Nikko is go to a Japanese party and stay up all night. That is exactly what happened because some friends from the language salon invited me out to their friends place for some cheap food and drink Friday night. The main reason I went was because the party was at a ceramics studio and I have been searching for a ceramics studio in Sanjo since I got here. Talk about exciting! Eventually I got the tour of the studio that night and found out that I could take lessons there for 1500 yen (around $15) everyday I came. Needless to say I will be trying it out this week. Anyway the party itself was a good time and it definitely put my Japanese to the test. It was really difficult to understand the men in the group, especially once we had a few, because men here tend to speak a slightly different and rougher dialect. Finally around 3 am I wound up back at my apartment after taking a daiko (a taxi service that drives your car home for you) home.


Bright and early at 7 am my alarm started beeping and I had to get up in order to shower and pack before Melissa, Kate, and Kayvohn arrived to pick me up. Originally they were supposed to be there at 8:30 but ended up showing up to my door around 9, which was fine because we all know that I am rarely ready on time. The Japanese weather forecasters said it would be raining all weekend but once we got on the road, it didn't rain until we got back to Sanjo at the end of our trip. Note to self: never listen to Japanese meteorologists. Needless to say I was exhausted on the drive down to Nikko so despite it being gorgeous out I actually slept most of the way down to Nikko.

Once we got near Nikko we stopped at Lake Chuzenji, which is a massive lake just out side of the main part of the city. When I was here two years ago all of us wanted to visit here but it was too far for the group to travel in the amount of time we had. That obviously made it a huge priority for me to see this time around. Across the road from Lake Chuzenji was the Futarasan Shrine. Somehow we managed to go in the back way, not a surprise since we were using the Lonely Planet, but it meant we got in for free. It was this cool little shrine that overlooked the lake and we got to practice our karate kicks.


Kegon Falls was our next tourist attraction and was about a five minute drive down the road from the shrine. It has a spectacular waterfall and we even took the elevator down 100 meters to get a better view. Once there we realized that there were just more than the major water fall that could be seen from the top but lots of surrounding falls as well. The main waterfall was obviously the most stunning and it actually one of the most photographed places in Japan.


Afterwards we headed into central Nikko to find our ryokan, which took a little bit because of the map we had gotten. Once we got there we decided it was time to relax a bit so Kayvohn and I headed to the conbini (convenience store) in search of some booze and snacks. On the way back, as we approached our ryokan Kayvohn saw a monkey. At first I really didn't believe him but after a little bit more of him yelling, "monkey, monkey, monkey" I got the picture and pulled over. It was awesome to see the monkeys that are so famous in Nikko, especially because up to that point I had never seen them there. We ran back and got Melissa and Kate so they could see them to. Together we tried to get some good pictures but they were really hard to take because "they're not in cages". Can you see the monkeys?


The ryokan was fabulous and it basically consisted of eating, drinking, relaxing and sleeping. All my favorite things. First we had a couple beers before dinner and then sat down to a typical Japanese enkai-type meal. The best part about it was that we could talk amongst each other to find out what tasted good or bad and we didn't have to try everything in front of us. At least for me, when I am in the enkai setting, I try to taste everything once before deciding how disgusting it is. After dinner we headed to the onsen for some great hot spring action after a brisk day. Then it was time for more drinking and craziness once we all got back to the room. Some of the highlights were JCPenny modeling, playing dead and the pyramid.



Breakfast the next morning was sadly of the Japanese style which meant that all we really ate off our plates was the salad, miso soup, rice, egg and bacon. Not bad for me since I rarely eat breakfast in the first place. Then it was off to the traditional sites of Nikko. We went to the Toshogu Shrine area, which is where I visited last time so it was a lot easier to navigate and know what to see. In the lower part of the Toshogu shrine there were the famous three monkeys, hear, speak and say no evil, that are carved into the wood of one of the buildings. Then we had to pass through the Yomeimon gate, which is this elaborate white gate in order to see the main part of the temple. We passed through the gate of the sleeping cat and walked up a ton of steps, there was little girl counting behind us but I forgot to listen at the top, in order to see the shrine at the top.



After leaving the Toshogu shrine area we grabbed some yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) we viewed a wonderful little garden in the Rinnoji Shrine area. We didn't actually go into the buildings here because they all start to look the same after a while, especially when you don't know the meaning behind them. Then it was off to another very famous icon of Nikko the Shinkyo bridge (snake bridge). This structure was under construction two years ago so it was very exciting to see the uncovered bridge that day. Of course the whole time it was a clear sky and we had perfect pictures but my battery died halfway through the day to I had to start taking some with Kate's camera. I think they turned out alright though.


Finally, after we were all templed out, it was time to head back to Sanjo and Maki. Of course we hit some major traffic jams on the way back so it took a lot longer than it should have but we made it back in one piece. We managed to keep our sanity by singing karaoke to Melissa's ipod most of the way. Plus on the way back we found pumpkins!!! Of course they didn't have them in Niigata and we were actually told that they didn't grow them in Japan, what a lie. We stopped at one of the vendors where they actually gave them to us for free, maybe because it is past Halloween, so we will be using those in the near future. Stay tuned for more on that. The weekend couldn't have been more fun and it was great taking a road trip with people travel well together. There will definitely be more trips like that in the future.

posted by Aaron @ 6:38 AM