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Tokyo Day 4
5-30-07 - Today saw us waking up early to walk to the Asakusa Tobu station and catch the 2hr train to Nikko, the shrine to Tokugawa Ieyesu and his progeny. Oddly enough, I saw many of the treasures from there long ago at the Leeds Armoury, but it was still fantastic to visit the place where they're stored in person. (I recall thinking I would never get the chance to visit Nikko while looking at the stuff in Leeds, which in retrospect was kinda silly of me.)
First we caught a bus into town and had lunch in an old fashioned road side shop. I had some type of tofu udon that wasn't kitsune soba and Kirk had tonkatsudon. The first thing you see is Shinkyo bridge which is very pretty. See? We bought a combination ticket and had fun following the water that flows in channels down the mountain up to the top. There was a really cool bronze bowl up there too. Near the top, we first went to the Sanbutsudo with its three gold buddha, followed by a quick visit to the Japanese garden opposite. We walked up a wide, steep avenue to the Toshogu shrine. The decoration on the buildings was gorgeous and we saw the original carving of the "Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil" monkeys. There were tons of elementary school groups there. Scary.
There's a side hall to the shrine with a giant gold dragon painted on the ceiling. The acoustics are designed to amplify sound from the centre of the hall, and the priest demonstrates by cracking two sticks together. It was very loud. Next was Futarasen shrine which had many sacred trees and a sacred spring which led to many Inuyasha jokes. We climbed many steps to the Ryukoin temple which is notable for its many varied/brightly coloured temple guardians (mostly sky gods). We were tired and unwilling to walk much more so we headed back to the station. Our train wasn't until four so we had some tempura fried anko which was delicious and sat and ate while drinking free tea. Good stuff.
Back in Tokyo, I decided to visit Mandarake in Shibuya. It took awhile to get there and it was raining when I did, which made that famous crosswalk crossing rather hellish (since I didn't have umbrella). The character of the crosswalk changes because everyone has to give enough space for the umbrellas too. I finally made my way to the store, rather damp, and I did a double take upon entering. They were having a cosplay contest and contestant #66 was working in the store sorting through manga - as Kakashi. So very amusing. I wish they'd allowed pictures. I picked up another DBZ doujinshi, this one a rather plot & fighting heavy story with Vegeta, Krillin, Trunks and Eighteen. It's really well done. I picked up a few others as well. The best was a POTC one called Black Pirates that I read on the subway going home. It's hilarious - one story's about Will complaining Jack never tells him anything about Bill so Jack spins this horribly sappy story about how Bill broke his leg and had to learn to walk again, etc, which finally ends with the advice, "Don't ask Jack a serious question while drunk". Another story ended with Will morphing into Legolas and Jack into Edward Scissorhands. Pretty art too.
We watched some more Supernatural and had gyros for dinner before going to sleep.
First we caught a bus into town and had lunch in an old fashioned road side shop. I had some type of tofu udon that wasn't kitsune soba and Kirk had tonkatsudon. The first thing you see is Shinkyo bridge which is very pretty. See? We bought a combination ticket and had fun following the water that flows in channels down the mountain up to the top. There was a really cool bronze bowl up there too. Near the top, we first went to the Sanbutsudo with its three gold buddha, followed by a quick visit to the Japanese garden opposite. We walked up a wide, steep avenue to the Toshogu shrine. The decoration on the buildings was gorgeous and we saw the original carving of the "Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil" monkeys. There were tons of elementary school groups there. Scary.
There's a side hall to the shrine with a giant gold dragon painted on the ceiling. The acoustics are designed to amplify sound from the centre of the hall, and the priest demonstrates by cracking two sticks together. It was very loud. Next was Futarasen shrine which had many sacred trees and a sacred spring which led to many Inuyasha jokes. We climbed many steps to the Ryukoin temple which is notable for its many varied/brightly coloured temple guardians (mostly sky gods). We were tired and unwilling to walk much more so we headed back to the station. Our train wasn't until four so we had some tempura fried anko which was delicious and sat and ate while drinking free tea. Good stuff.
Back in Tokyo, I decided to visit Mandarake in Shibuya. It took awhile to get there and it was raining when I did, which made that famous crosswalk crossing rather hellish (since I didn't have umbrella). The character of the crosswalk changes because everyone has to give enough space for the umbrellas too. I finally made my way to the store, rather damp, and I did a double take upon entering. They were having a cosplay contest and contestant #66 was working in the store sorting through manga - as Kakashi. So very amusing. I wish they'd allowed pictures. I picked up another DBZ doujinshi, this one a rather plot & fighting heavy story with Vegeta, Krillin, Trunks and Eighteen. It's really well done. I picked up a few others as well. The best was a POTC one called Black Pirates that I read on the subway going home. It's hilarious - one story's about Will complaining Jack never tells him anything about Bill so Jack spins this horribly sappy story about how Bill broke his leg and had to learn to walk again, etc, which finally ends with the advice, "Don't ask Jack a serious question while drunk". Another story ended with Will morphing into Legolas and Jack into Edward Scissorhands. Pretty art too.
We watched some more Supernatural and had gyros for dinner before going to sleep.