Nikko

Our best friend, Jeff Driggs works as an accountant for Pricewaterhouse Coopers. He got a temporary assignment in Tokyo, so we got to have him with us in Tokyo for 3 months (absolutely awesome!) . His wife Christeena came out for good portion of this assignment too. We hung out with them during the week and partied with them on the weekends (well, Mormon style :). It was a total blast.

Riding the train to Nikko...

Jeff and Christeena

Nikko is a quaint shrine village built in 1634 and located in the mountains of the Tochigi Prefecture.

The gorgeous Daiya River runs through the town.

Fountain of Youth? or maybe just to cleanse yourself before entering sacred ground

Looking back at this, I don't think we were supposed to drink it... I think the water was for our hands only... oh well, bottom's up!

My friend Naoko told me that the purpose of the large incense burning pot in front of the temple is to bless any part of your body experiencing sickness. While Christeena and I pour it onto our skin that we may always be youthful, the guy next to us wants the hair to grow on his balding head.... see him patting it?

It was unreal how many intricate temples there were in one space... your head was spinning with the details. This tall temple is Buddhist and it is called a pagoda.
And of course before entering a temple, you must remove your shoes. I love this picture of the PILE of shoes.

The woodwork in the shrines is extremely detailed... hard to think that it was crafted before Columbus ever set foot in America! These monkeys are very famous, "Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil".

Autumn was just getting started...

Nikko had some fun antique stores... I am a sucker for old books and I picked up a couple. Christeena found this amazing 1920's top hat... too bad Jeff would not let her buy it... he is so hard on her :).

Afterwards we hiked deep in the mountain side to some outstanding waterfalls! This sign is wrong... it makes it seem like it was only 1.5 miles to the falls.... it was more like 5 and we could have driven for half of it... this was a long walk (and it really was uphill too).

See tiny me next to the waterfall? Jeff and I were daring enough to hike the slippery trail for a closer look... it is much higher up than you think.

We found an adorned and clothed Buddha in the forest, surrounded by what I thought was trash. It seemed odd to me that in a beautiful setting there would be Japanese litterbugs around to ruin it.Christeena and I pretended to drink the juice boxes... at least I did not pick mine up, ah hem Christeena... Later I learned this was not trash, but a sincere offering to their God, Buddha.

It was a very long hike, but well worth it. We did it and we'd do it again!