Soaking up the atmosphere in Nikko

Finally... have gotten around to posting the pics from my trip to Nikko over the long weekend. Had severe lack of lessons so took Friday off and headed down to Tochigi on Thursday afternoon, making the three-day-weekend into almost five :D Nikko was amazing, toured around a load of different places in the area, starting with the very theme-parky Edo Mura, then Kinugawa, then onto Oku Nikko for a couple of days visiting Chuzenji lake and the falls at Ryuzu and Kegon before picking up the Toshogu Shrine and all the other temples and monuments attached to it, on the way home. The shrines and everything were really interesting and there was a bit of a guided-talky bit but to be honest most of the historical and religious detail was in way-over-my-head-Japanese, so I missed the significance somewhat, but it was very impressive. The natural sites around the place, the mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and the views from the curvy Irohazaka road were far more moving for me personally. And, although we missed the brunt of the typhoon, the rain and the way the clouds would just roll in and envelop an entire landscape within minutes made an already dramatic location even more intensely beautiful. Was really glad to have made it because I haven't done much actual sight-seeing-y stuff since I've been in Japan, with the exceptions of Tokyo, Sapporo and bits of Tohoku that are reachable easily from Aomori, and Nikko as a collection of scenes is justifiably worth its reputation.

The photos are in reverse order, so if you care about chronology (and I know there are historians reading this so you have no excuse!) then read bottom-up. Have a bit of a cold now and Aomori is fairly chilly, especially at night. Also my house has been invaded by at least 270 species of bug, including the infamous kamemushi, the stink-bugs. One of them got caught in one of my prize-spiders'-webs this evening and let off this unearthly stench during the middle of Eikaiwa. We looked up to find him thrashing about wildly and being beaten to a pulp by this big spider. haha. Be ashamed.