Up to Nikko to Get the Trip Started

After crashing really hard last night, we were both up and ready to get moving...rather late, around 9. We stayed at a small hotel right next to Ueno Park, which was clearly made for people smaller than I. My shoulders brushed the walls of some of the hallway if I walked straight down and the doors....

Remember, I'm only 6 feet tall.

As per our tradition when we're in Ueno, we walked up to the station and had a nice breakfast at Andersen Bakery.

Ueno Cheese Balls, Panda Cream, and Anpan

After a nice, leisurely breakfast, we hopped on the Ginza line to get to Asakusa-eki 

The SkyTree and the Golden Poo: Two iconic Asakusa landmarks.

where we took the Tobu limited express service up to Nikko. Two hours later, we were in the small mountain town of Nikko, which houses a World Heritage site, the Toshogu Shrine, a mausoleum for the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu. We visited the shrine complex in 2018 when we cycled from Tokyo to Nagano, and it was so crowded with tourists that we didn't stick around to see everything. Our goal was to get our bikes put together, ship our cases on ahead to Fukushima, and maybe do a little sightseeing and we chose Nikko because it connected with the route we planned on taking and it was far enough north to be away from the Tokyo traffic.

Nikko is 100% a tourist town, and has a number of things to see and do outside of the shrine. The area is popular for skiing, hiking, and other outdoor activities and has numerous lakes, waterfalls, and yes, mountains. They have an old restored steam train (trains are a big part of Japanese culture) that visitors can ride up to the Kinugawa Onsen resort.

The SL Taiju

Walking to our hotel, we spied the telltale sign that we were in a tourist trap.

Note the golden Lucky Hello Kitty out front.

Fortunately it's the beginning of the trip and "we" can't buy anything that we're not going to be carrying on our backs for the next few weeks, so we escaped without adding to the collection. Our hotel was not even open yet, but they had coin lockers out front, so we dropped all our gear and took a bus up to the shrine to walk around for a bit before we could check in. This is normal in Japan, by the way. Hotels usually do not allow check in until 3-4PM, and if the last guest checked out in the morning, smaller places will just shut down until check in that evening.

The shrine was, not surprisingly, overrun with tourists and school field trips, but not as bad as when we were last here. We did make it all the way up to the mausoleum this time. The shrine is an explosion of color and art, which is very unlike most shrines in Japan and resembles Chinese Buddhist temples with their extravagant carvings and coloring. Every building has multiple animals and scenes carved into it, including the famous Sanzaru, the three monkeys ("See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"),

a carving of a sleeping cat above the entranceway leading to the mausoleum

Nemurineko

and one of my favorites, the "Imaginary Elephants"

The story behind these elephants is perfect in highlighting the absurdities of Japanese culture of the time. An artist was tasked by the shogun with carving rare elephants. The artist had never seen an elephant in his life. At that point in history only three elephants had ever been brought to Japan, and only high ranking nobles were ever allowed to see them. The artist read about what they were supposed to look like and "imagined" what they would do. The result is what you get when you cross a traditional depiction of Chinese tigers with ostensibly elephants. The best part is no one else involved knew what an elephant was supposed to look like either, and so it ended up as the main artwork over the entrance to the Kamijinko, one of the sacred storehouses. Of particular note for me are the claws, the half-moon eyes, and the pose of the left "elephant". 

Below are a few more pictures of the shrine area. They don't really do the place justice, but give a sense of what every building in the complex looks like.

As we were leaving, we spotted the post office that was located on the shrine grounds. 

We made our way back to the hotel and got checked in. Our bikes arrived shortly after and we spent the next several hours getting everything put together and organized. It was about 6PM and we hadn't eaten lunch, so we were tired and hungry. It turns out Nikko the town shuts down about 5. All of the restaurants in the area were already closed except for bars and one Yuba restaurant. Yuba, as we found out, is tofu skin. After you slaughter the tofu, you skin it, and this is the result. 

Is what went through my mind, but the reality isn't nearly as awesome. You boil soy milk and the stuff that hardens on the surface of the milk, that's yuba. In any case, it was our only choice and we were up for something new. Until we looked at the menu and saw that it was mostly soup with floating yuba and sashimi. The Yuba Curry did not look appetizing either. The place was small and they had a sign informing impatient tourists that the meals take up to 30 minutes to prepare. Being the only game in town at this point, the place was full and we had to wait about 15 minutes to get seated. They did have what they called "burgers", which were actually sandwiches with either fried chicken or roast beef, which was better than a burger, in my opinion.

The fries were fresh potato wedges seasoned with a hint of cinnamon, which was really quite good. The "burgers" were decent and smelled a lot better than the "Yuba Ramen Chef Recommended Special" that the women next to me ordered.

After a quick stop at FamilyMart to buy breakfast for tomorrow, we collapsed in our room. Tomorrow's forecast is scattered showers, a perfect way to start our cycling trip...