It's been another day of butt-cracking long distance travel.
Woke up early this morning and took a stroll to the Senso-ji, offered some prayers and got upclose with sakura. When getting ready to check out and head over to Nikko, I realised that the JR pass can only be changed for at designated travel service desks, two of which are at the airport and Ueno, both place I'd been yesterday but didn't know I could turn my voucher in for the pass. Grr ... so I had to make a trip down to Ueno because I would need it on 11 April to get from Nikko back to Tokyo and on to Nagano.
By the time I was on the platform of the Tobu-Nikko "section rapid" service, I was waiting for the 11.50 am train, and it took 2.5 hours getting to Nikko, which is far longer than I had read about. Hmm ... hope the JR train would be faster!
I was all ready to roam Nikko after 3 pm (after checking in at the Nikko Park Lodge, which is a bit far from the train station but a nice cosy place). But the shrines and temples were closing at 4 pm so I took the bus (which is "free" as it's part of the World Heritage pass that I got for this trip) and went one loop to orientate myself with this quaint little town. I later took a walk and ended up having dinner at an interesting eatery near the Shikyo Bridge.
Enough words. Now the pix :)
Stratospheric twister!
More interesting cloud formations during the flight to Tokyo.
Sakura in the garden of the Senso-ji in Asakusa.
View from the banks of the river on which the Asahi beer building stands.
Train to Nikko.
Tobu-Nikko train station.
Slots for plates where people write something ... maybe wishes? Just outside the Nikko JR station. Weird.
View of the Nikko neighbourhood.
The Shinkyo Bridge, famous for a reason I forget ... can google la :)
Waiting for my dinner and overwhelmed by the notes covering the wall ... this restaurant has pretty awesome atmosphere!
And, as tasted, pretty awesome yakitori too.
Juicy chicken yakitori.
My humble contribution to the wall v(^___^*)v
That "post-it" eatery ...
Nikko town at 7 pm.
