Today for reasons that made perfect sense when we were booking this trip we have arranged to go on a coach trip to Nikko which is a world heritage site. We had to report to the bus terminal where we were allocated our bus and seat! Luckily we are booked onto the English speaking tour so we should at least be able to understand what is going on. The journey was actually 3 hours but this included a service station stop where we debated about buying noodles from the vending machine but as we hadn’t long had breakfast we decided against it we finally arrived in Nikko at about 12.00 and were issued with our headsets so that we could hear our guide. The only problem with the headsets is that they only work if you are really close to her! Nikko is a collection of shrines, mausoleums and temples and there is a saying in Japan ‘Nikko wo minakereba, kekko to ju na’ which apparently means ‘Don’t say magnificent until you’ve seen Nikko’ and I must admit they have a point. The village was originally developed around the temples Rinno-ji and Chuzen-ji which were both established in the 8th century unfortunately between the 12th and 14th centuries the area fell into decline until in 1617 Nikko was chosen as the site for the Tosha-gu shrine which houses the remains of Tokugawa leyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate (military government) who ruled from 1600 until the Meji (emperor) restoration in 1868. It is said that if you draw a straight line from the tori entrance gate to Tokyo it will take you to the imperial palace. After being issued with our entrance tickets and looking at the five story pagoda which has a suspended wooden beam which is designed to maintain equilibrium during an earthquake, we climbed the steps to the complex. There seems to be a bonsai exhibition going on outside the temples and I think it is definitely something we will look at when we get back home although having looked at them the ones I want tend to only grow outside in direct sunlight! The first building we looked at is actually the ‘sacred stables’ this is home to a white horse which for some reason is donated by New Zealand Maori people! He wasn’t home today but the building is unique as it is the only un-lacquered building in the complex, as well as being original therefore over 400 years old, it is also home to the famous “hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil monkeys” we walked round a number of the temples with the guide providing explanations as we went we did learn one thing which was that the open and closed mouth guardians actually represent the beginning and end of all things as the sound made with your mouth open is similar to the first letter of then Japanese alphabet and the sound made with your mouth closed is similar to the final letter of the alphabet. We were given some free time where we walked round the temples again this time a little slower then it was off to lunch which was actually very nice it was ‘traditional Japanese’ but to my mind and from what we have had so far this trip it was a little bit of a westernised version. Back onto the coach and it was a drive up to Lake Chuzenji which is 1,269 metres above sea level, it is said to have been created by the eruption of Mount Nantai 2000 years ago. Then up to the Kegon waterfall which is 97 metres high and one of Japan’s highest and most famous waterfalls, it was nice but not flowing very fast and the drive up was as impressive as you drive up a road that has 24 hairpin bends on the way up and 28 on the way down (they have a one way system) it was pretty impressive driving by our coach driver. We were entertained on the way back by the guide providing various bits of information about life in Japan, she told us about their equivalent of a christening which is a few weeks after a birth the child is introduced to the local temple which means this is the one they will belong to until they change if they move away or marry. She also explained schooling which starts with kindergarten at 3 years old, all schools have uniform and they don’t seem to have any ‘dress down days’ as she said this is good that you don’t have to think through what to wear in the morning but also it means that when you finally leave education you are not sure what to wear! When you start the equivalent of primary school you have to buy one of the really nice leather back packs we have seen them all walking round with, apparently these are really expensive so they tend to be brought by the grandparents. Some other interesting things are that at 20 you have to join a pension scheme, there are exceptions for people that are still in education but that is the only exception. She also discussed health care they have a semi private system in that rather than paying for insurance as such they have to pay for 30% of all heath care bills so it is probably worth having insurance but it didn’t seem to be the norm. Finally she decided to show us some origami, we were all provided with a piece of very stiff paper and taught how to make a samurai helmet, we were both rather good at this and quite proud of our achievements!It was then time to head back to Tokyo and for some reason we were dropped off at a completely different place to where we had met the bus this morning I am sure it made sense to them but not to me, all the same we jumped on the train and got back to the hotel about 8pm so we went back to the room and collected our laundry, put that on then had a couple of well earned drinks while waiting for the washing to finish.
