Enter the town of Nikko in Toshogu on a quiet day, and you enter a place that, while touristy, is a different slice of life than many places in Japan - especially in the autumn. Set against a backdrop of mountains, with colors of deep crimson, petricor, auburn, purple, and all manners of orange, you offset it with the greens of moss and the greys of stone or even the whites of snow.
Shops and stalls sell steaming buns filled with red bean paste, pork, or there will be roasted chestnuts here and there. Another place will have soba or tempura, with the most wonderful "umami" aroma wafting out of the door. Alas I do not have a picture of such things myself so I hope you will not mind if I borrow from google.
This is a very spiritual town though, being connected to the mountains and streams, to a lake beyond them and to the shrines and the world heritage site which I will discuss in another post. A statue of Shodo SHonin, the first person to explore the summits of Nikko greets the visitor as they enter the town, harkening not only to the Buddhist aspects of the place, but also Japan's mountaining heart.
Of course, Shinto is also represented, and our friends the foxes of Inari were not far away. Right outside our hotel was a tiny Inari shrine with little foxes and you can bet that I paid a respect after our long journey.
Meandering back down into town you find places have wood carvings that you can buy wood carvings, or a more unique gift to Nikko, a "single stroke" dragon painting. There are two such shops in the town, one of which I visited on my first time, a hilarious experience where we were pressed for time and I ran all the way up the hill from the bus stop to get a painting, and then ran back. This time, however, I wanted to get a proper experience.
The way the single stroke works is the artist asks you for the colors and message you want, and then using particular skills that would take decades to master, presses their brush with the colors to create the impression of dragons scales upon the sheet of paper. They swirl and curve the arch in the waves and sinews of these magnificent eastern creatures, then add talons, eyes, horns, pearls. Finally there is the message you wish to impart.
Watching the man work was something out of a meditation in myself, and I believe this began as a meditative exercise back in the day. The dragon in eastern cultures is a creature that brings rain, joy, it is a powerful being, a ruler that lives beneath the sea, belongs to a river or at least is the god of that river I think. The stroke of the brush is the river here, the strength behind it is the conviction of the artist, the spirit of the person's desire is the hope and dreams they wish to impart into the paper, the wishes they create. The beauty it all imparts in one harmonious action, and there you have the finished product now hanging on my wall years later.
Seeing these videos, watching the process, I am so glad I went back that second time to experience it. Running up and back a hill to just get a pre-done painting did not do it justice when I heard about it the first time. I still have that painting and enjoy it to be fair, but this one is special because it was done for me. If you are wondering what the message was, I don't recall exactly now. I believe it was "Fortune upon my family" or "May my family always be happy." I think it was a fitting desire.
Next writing I will delve into the world heritage shrines and sites, as well as some hidden places of Nikko.
Time has a way of slipping through the fingers. When I began this blog I saw it as a sort of discipline as much as a way to share my travels, insights and writing. I enjoyed sharing my writing with people, seeing reactions on Google+, but then that dissapeared and with it those interactions. Now here I am, returning to try to finish what I started, like an old friend estranged. Maybe it is out of obligation, or maybe that passion remains somewhere despite the years.
When considering where to begin again, I decided to look where I last ended, and that was traveling through Japan way the heck back in 2016 or so. I stopped just before our last portion of the trip to a place I had longed to return, a place near and dear to my heart, Nikko.
While Nikko is a World Heritage Site, well known tourist destination, and it is connected to a larger city of the same name, the portion Iknow well has become a sort of synonymous part of Japan and its character to me. Nestled in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, its a Shinkansen and then a train ride away from Tokyo at about four hours or so. I have visited twice in the Autumn, and the magnificence of this place with the changing of the leaves has few comparisons in my mind so far.
Nikko was and is a place of spiritual significance, a place of temples and shrines nestled among cedars and maples, a location where water descends in a torrent down the mountainsides, where mists cling to everything like the ghosts of the past in present.
It is here that the founder of the last shogunate of Japan, Tokugawa Ieasu, choose to leave his earthly remains. His grandson built him a magnificent temple structure known as Toshogu. To describe this shrine as austentaceous is an understatement. Hundreds of woodcarvers have labored hundreds of years to build and maintain it and every inch of surface is embellished in gold and laquer and the most marvelous carvings. It is a woodworker's dream to visit and though I have no skill in such art, standing before it I can only appreciate the work it took to do it.
Ieasu's grandson, Iemitsu, built himself a much smaller and less austentaceous tomb complex called Rinnoji, which to be honest was my more favored of the two. It is interesting to see a man so highly elevate his grandfather with such splendid wealth, and yet for himself he builds something more subdued. One can imagine emerging from the forest into this or the neighboring Futarasan Jinja Shrine and having stepped hundreds of years to another time and another world. Toshogyu, meanwhile, because of its location, is always connected to the city itself.
Having arrived in Nikko for the second time, we took a bus to our accomodation. Now, I don't know how much of what we experienced was from my research or luck, but after staying at an older hotel up at Lake Chuzenji, I opted for something a little more modern while still holding the firm roots in Japanese inn culture. Where the Chuzenji stay was clearly a hotel, our stay at Nikko Hoshinoyado was the quintissential Ryokan.
For those who do not know, Japan has a centuries old culture of inn stays for travelers where they pull out all the stops of courtesy and customer service. You are treated to beautiful rooms, hot springs or hot baths, often to gorgeous gardens and some of the most spectacular food imaginable. I'd never experienced any of this going to Japan, and I didn't imagine when we were staying a few days in Nikko that we would have what was and is one of the best hotel and food experiences in my life. There is so much to speak of in describing this place I cannot wait.
I close this opening to Nikko with a quesiton of why return? Well I'm one of those strange people who could visit the same place in Japan a thousand times and find something new for one. For another the first visit I had the terrible luck with my camera and the pictures I took and so I wanted another chance to go to the same places. A third reason was to stay closer to the main sites so I could get up and out before anyone else, see them without people. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, because I love it. Nikko in Autumn, the shrines, the town, the people and the experiences I had this second trip are as close to heaven as I think I've come. A lifetime of study in Japan, concerted effort on my part, and a good deal of luck all culminated in a fantastic end to a fantastic trip. I look forward to sharing it with those who read this, and those who yearn to travel beyond the sea to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Sometimes when you travel the expectation exceeds the reality of the situation. This is rare for me, especially when it comes to Japan, but when my family traveled there, we had an expectation to see the mountain hamlet of Shirakawago. The plan was to stay in neighboring Takayama, known for its old townscape with beautiful and quaint houses that feel like something out of the more ancient times. We would then go to the hamlet, which in itself has a lovely old feel with grass roofed houses (known as Gassho for the shape of hands in prayer). Unfortunetly for us we stayed at a not so nice hotel in Takayama and I think that colored the entire feeling of the one night stay. I won't beligure the Hotel experience other than to say it was a bad chance, and I think if we stayed at another place both my parents and I would have had a higher opinion. We also went in spring and there was still the sort of "Ugly Duckling" feeling to Shirakawgo, with more mud and semi-melted snow than the picturesque village scene we hoped for. Plus Shirakawago is a tourist destination, so it has little tourist shops here and there. It gives one an understanding that though this is a working village, and though it is beautiful, it does rely heavilly on tourists, and its not just a forgotten place that you stumble upon.
I did like Takayama, and I would go back there and to Shirakawago in the fall or later spring to get a better sense, and stay at a better hotel for a better experience. My memories of Takayama are of streets with lovely wooden houses. Warm light touched from the glass or paper windows and lanterns in the morning as passed by on an early walk. The local museum had some very beautiful models of shrines we would see in Nikko, and some floats from their local festival. We also saw Mount Fuji on the train ride to Nikko, which was a highlight. Alas, the rest of this brief stint sort of fades into memory looking back. I can look through the pictures and think about what could be, but that's not what was. But that happens sometime. On our first trip our bad experience was a single restaurant outside Fushimi Inari, so this was our little brief one here. We would more than make up for it in Nikko.
Brief Glimpse at Fuji
Takayama Town Center
One of the old shops of Takayama
A carving/motif of a dragon at a local shrine
Festival Floats at the museum
Model of Toshogu Shrine in Nikko
Gassho Grass Roofed Farm Houses
Remnants of Winter
Fun little sign in Takayama
My family and I overlooking Shirakawago
I caught a brief ceremony at the local Inari Shrine.
