We have visited Nikko and its national park as a one-day trip with friends. This place is only a 2-hour drive from Tokyo, so definitely worth to see it, while you are staying in Tokyo. Let see what was so impressive for us including sights and local dishes!
We have visited Nikko with our local friends. It is kind of a long time friendship (we have known each other from university exchange programs) and long time no see. They have been in Hungary approx. 2 years, so we were really happy to meet and greet them in Japan. Fortunately they will come to work to the UK, so we can visit each other more often from this summer.
The weather was not so kind with us, as it was rainy and cold. The temperature barely reached the 10 degrees. Moreover I had a sore throat, because we were not well prepared for this cold weather in spring. I had only one light spring jacket and a light pullover. You should be prepared as I mentioned in a previous post. Despite of the weather conditions, we were happy to spend some time together and speaking about Japanese culture and society.
Lets see what sights we have visited in Nikko including our special tofu lunch.
Top attractions in Nikko
1. Toshogu Shrine
Firstly, we have visited the Toshogu Shrine, what is the resting place for Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate who are ruled Japan over 250 years until 1868. (Source: japan-guide.com) He was a defining man of the Japanese history. Alongside with this fact, his resting place was beautiful, enormous, yet mysterious and quiet with very special atmosphere.
The shrine have been decorated with many carvings and large gold leafs, what is unique nowadays in Japan. The shire had both Shinto and Buddhist elements, which was a common practice throughout Japan until the Meiji Period. After that Shinto was separated from Buddhist, people removed Shinto elements from shrines and vica versa. Luckily, the separation have not happened completely at Toshogu shrine. (Sorce: japan-guide.com) The decoration have totally impressed us.
We could enter into one of the building which is not really common across Japan, of course we had to take off our shoes. As I mentioned the weather was not in our favor, so the floor's temperature was only around 3-4 degrees, which meant a rather fast visit. It was prohibited to take photos from the inside of the building, so we have pictures only from outside. Lucky for you, in general, the shrines in Japan are more beautiful from the outside.
The ticket was ¥1,300 what is around 10 EUR /person, which is really price-worthy since it was really unique and amazing.
2. Shinkyo Bridge
The second must see sight was the Shinkyo bridge, what was completed in 1636 and located in central of Nikko. A nice river is flowing underneath of the bridge. It was a lovely landscape of the Japanese countryside.
The bridge was not open for public until 1973. Now if you pay ¥300 (2,5 EUR) as an admission ticket you can walk through on it. To be honest, we have skipped this one.
3. Kegon Waterfall
The main reason why we wanted to visit Kegon waterfall was because it is a great cherry blossom spot. So we were a bit shocked when we got there and saw the snowy peaks and bay with the waterfall. It was actually snowing there and was also really cold, it was a funny experience and impressive landscape to visit though.
The waterfall was beautiful despite of the strange weather. There was a free observation deck, what was easily accessible on foot. If you would like to admire the waterfalls from 100 meter deeper, you can see it from paid platform, which you can reach via an elevator.
4. Lake Chuzenji
The last sight what we have visited was the Lake Chuzenji. The mountains around the lake were fascinating and during the sunset, the lights were lovely. The whole landscape including the mountains and the little holiday village around the lake were covered by snow. Fortunately we have found a great coffee place at last and had a quite good coffee. After we have filled up with energy again we headed to the lake to take a walk a little bit and took some pictures before hitting the road again back to Tokyo.
These are the places what we visited in the Nikko, which I can't recommend more. It is a really nice getaway from the city to explore Japanese nature as well as some of quite famous and important cultural sights of Japan.
Now lets see our special tofu lunch!
Japanese food for lunch
Based on our local guides recommendation, we have tried a local Japanese restaurant serving Yuba. This means Tofu skin in English. We had a multi-course lunch with several type of Yuba, which was interesting to eat. The menu was available only on Japanese language, but our favourite guides were there to help.
The taste of the tofu skin was totally different than what we called tofu in Europe. I was happy to try local dishes, it was not my favourite dish in Japan though.
All in all this was our amazing day trip in Nikko with our friends.
Next up: Going to Osaka with Shinkansen
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