Day 2 - Asakusa - Nikko

Day 2 - Asakusa to Nikko
So we woke up super early, so we were out of our hostel by 6:30, having a wander around Sensoji, and headed to Asakusa tobu station, a quick, but much loved trip by a family mart stocked us up with breakfast supplies. We were then at the Tobu information centre for its 7:20am opening. We purchased Nikko World Heritage passes off klook for half price, and we had already purchased the express train portion of our journey online last week. So we had everything already sorted. So off to have breakfast in with a view of the golden poo.

We thought being a Sunday the train to Nikko would be full, but no, only 3 other people were in our carriage. The Spacia is a nice ride up to Nikko, the journey went by pretty quickly, and we arrive at 9:48am. Stashed the backpacks in a coin locker, (700yen) and set off walking up the hill along Nikko's main street. Stopping off at the Family Mart to buy some umbrellas as it was starting to spit.

We found some crowds at Toshogu shrine, the main reason we chose to visit Nikko was I found my grandfathers photos of Nikko from 1946. I photographed current day replicas as best I could.

Then it rained just enough to be really annoying and get you wet, 2 umbrellas was not enough. So with the crowds of umbrellas and the drizzle, we saw, we photographed the icons hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil monkeys, we saw the carving done of an elephant by a guy who had never seen one, we climbed the 207 steps to th late emperors resting place, and we left.

We hid out from the rain at the nearest restaurant we found and had a pretty good meal of Japanese curry (5700yen). Once the food was eaten, the rain had stopped, so we walked back down the main street, stopping for a Nikko version of Taiyaki. It was a delicious custard filled monkey. (220yen)

We then headed to our hotel for the night, this place is nice. It had a big faux outdoor onsen tub, so we all had a soak. Then, with 7-11 just up the street, it was a very uninspired quick meal. Our train out in the morning is at 7:37am.

Fun fact - airtags - not sure knowing where the bags are is good. We dropped them off saturday evening, and by Sunday evening, they were only 30mins from Narita. Not knowing their journey like we did in the past maybe its better to be blissfully unaware. Czytaj więcej