Japan - Tokyo - Okinawa | My Travel Report: World Cultural Heritage Nikkō

surripio (55)in #travel • 6 years ago

Hello, Steemians,

Two years ago I was in Japan with my family for 14 days. My in-laws were there, too. My father-in-law comes from Russia and did his military service in Vladivostok, since then he dreams of visiting Japan. For him, it was a long dream come true. And for us it was such a nice experience that we definitely want to go there again. Already for the reason that we only looked at Tokyo, a little surrounding area and Okinawa, the country has so much more to offer. It is very clean and really beautiful, the Japanese are friendly and very disciplined and I would like to bring you closer to a small series of different places we have visited there and wish you a lot of fun.

All pictures are of course clickable and will be enlarged.

Foreword

On the fourth day of our trip to Japan, we will take another trip out of the big city. And off to Nikkō one of the most beautiful places around Tokyo and one of the places you should visit if you have no time to visit Kyoto like we do. In Japan there is a saying "Never say'kekko' (splendid) before you have seen Nikko". It is located about 140 kilometers north of Tokyo and contains beautiful temples and shrines.

Nikko

To get to Nikko you have to go to Ikebukuro station in Tokyo and from there take the Japan Railway Nikko-Kinugawa Nikko 1 in the direction of Tobu-Nikko. The drive to the beautiful city which has even more to offer than shrines and temples takes about 2 hours. But one day is enough to see a lot on site. In 1999 the city was included in the World Cultural Heritage list. And by the way, you know the three monkeys, "see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing" they also call them the monkeys of Nikko.

Arrived in Nikko you will find one of the largest temple complexes signposted in a beautiful ancient forest.

That one is here in the midst of nature, one notices also on the basis the insects which are to be found around in the environment.

In the complex there are watercourses again and again and on the outer places in front of the shrines there are small trees and tense ropes on which the Japanese write down and hang up their wishes.

The big complex is really beautifully built, there is just a lot to see here, one was not allowed to take pictures in the temples and shrines so here are only pictures from the outside area.

This temple is also protected by ONI, the devils of Japanese mythology, but your real origin and meaning are much deeper than just being devils.

Here on the first picture you can see a tree that was planted 500 years ago in the imperial period and survived wars. Now look at the trees on the second picture, how old they are, you just feel the awe in every cell.

Here we leave the temple complex and head towards the new town of Nikko, which has a beautiful lake with impressive drainage.

Passing the delicious grilled fish, 100% fresh from the lake, to the lift that takes us to the viewing platform from which you have a great view of the lake's drain, a beautiful waterfall called the Kego Falls.

Now back towards the city gate of Nikko, the magnificent view of the Chūzenji lake opens up here. Also we did not let us take us with our kids in one of the pedal boat swans to ride. And thus a really dreamlike day came to an end.