Goodbye Aomori, Hello Nikko, Goodbye Nikko, Hello Ikebukuro
The conference ended on Sunday, and the next morning we all got on a bus headed to the train station. A typhoon was headed up the coast, but we made the 2½ hour bullet train ride to Nikko before it hit. Nikko is a medium-sized town, northwest of Tokyo, known for its many historical temples and shrines. We wanted to stay somewhere cheap, so Maria had reserved a room for us at the Nikko Shi Koryu Sokushin Center, which is a youth hostel. Our expectations were low, but it turned out to be the world’s nicest youth hostel. It was no Oirase Grand Hotel, but the rooms were clean and pleasant, and it even had big hot spring baths. The only hitch was that they wanted payment in cash up front, and we were low on yen. Nikko was not directly in the typhoon’s path, but it was close enough to bring a deluge of rain and heavy winds to the area. As the only Japanese speaker among us, Maria braved the elements to locate an international ATM, which can be difficult to find. But with her superhuman knowledge of the Japanese postal savings system, she correctly guessed that there would be one at the post office. Unfortunately, she got utterly drenched on her trek. By this time it was already late afternoon, and there was no sign of the storm letting up, so we got bentos (Japanese boxed meals) and settled in our room for the evening.
Tuesday was hot and steamy, and we set out on foot for Nikko Sannai – a small district in Nikko, which is ground zero for historical temples and shrines (essentially, it’s the Disney World of temples). We passed all the elementary school kids who were walking to school, and they greeted us with a cheery “konichiwa” (hello) as they went by. Once we hit the temple zone, I took pictures of the first dozen or so we encountered, but there were so many that we eventually came down with a case of temple overload. Maria was feeling adventurous, so we hopped on a city bus, which took us up a winding mountain road to Lake Chuzenji, which she had noticed on our map. It turned out to be quite spectacular. We rented a paddle boat shaped like a helicopter (Kai’s choice) and had a nice time meandering around the lake. See the captions in the photos below for more on the temples and the lake.
After coming back down the mountain, we caught the train to Tokyo. Our hotel was in a neighborhood called Ikebukuro, which is a busy, mostly working-class area with a decent nightlife (albeit a decidedly second-tier one by Tokyo standards). After more than a decade of economic doldrums and deflation, most things in Japan now cost about the same as in the US, with the exception of hotel rooms. Most charge per person rather than per room, so finding a decent rate for a family is a challenge. But before we left for Japan, Maria tracked down the Kimi Ryokan, which caters to foreigners and has reasonable rates. Our taxi driver couldn’t find it though. So he dropped us off, and Maria called the hotel for walking directions. But despite her best descriptive efforts, they couldn’t figure out where we were (it’s an old part of the city, with inconsistent street names and numbering, so navigation is all about landmarks). It was getting late, and Kai was exhausted and hungry, so we found a bento shop – Kai and I sat on our luggage on the sidewalk and ate while Maria tried to find some landmarks. Luckily, we happened upon a sidewalk sign with a map of the area and tracked down the hotel ourselves.
Arriving at the hotel, we once again ran into the problem of being low on yen, and the Chinese man behind the counter wanted cash up front. He spoke English well enough, but I don’t think he could read it: as he stiffly explained their payment policy, he pointed to the prominent sign on the counter for emphasis, which read “Please ring bell for service.” But he eventually found it in his heart to allow us to pay the next morning. It was clearly not a hotel operated by Japanese, as it was noisy and not very clean – it didn’t even come close to the youth hostel in Nikko. But it was basically fine, it was relatively cheap, and we had reservations for the week, so we settled in.
January 6th, 2006 at 11:39 am
This is a very helpful website
Thank you
you should enjoy every trip you go on ^^