Nikko (“sunlight” or “sunshine”) is a city in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Approximately 85 miles north of Tokyo it is a popular destination for Japanese and international tourists. Attractions include the mausoleum of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (Nikkō Tōshō-gū), and the Futarasan Shrine, which dates to the year 767. There are also many famous hot springs. -Wikipedia

Ok so now you have a very short synopsis of where we went yesterday. It was breathtaking! It’s no wonder it has a title of a World Heritage Site. We set out to catch the fast train at 6:30am for our 2 hour ride to Tobu-Nikko. The ride there was neat. We saw the countryside and loads of rice fields.

We got there and bought a round trip bus pass for the Nikko area. Very reasonable. Hop on and off pass that took you up into the mountains was $20 a piece! The mountain village itself is so quaint but the treasure lies up hundreds of steps in the forest. I think by far this was one of our best days.

The Shinkyo Sacred bridge was our first stop.

The water was so crystal clear. It was gorgeous.

Our trek began up these stairs into the forest!

Look closely at the carvings of the wooden shrine above. Those are the famous “hear no evil, speak no evil,see no evil” monkeys.

From there it was one awesome shrine/ temple after another.

From there we hopped on the bus to take us to the mountain lake and to see Kegon falls. It was a very cute town about a half hour up the mountain. We stopped for lunch. Again no English menu, luckily they had plastic likeness’ of the food in the window so we could just point!

We returned to Tobu-Nikko station in time to catch a train back to Shinjuku. Our first day trip was over. It was awesome!

By the way, the last time I was in Nikko was with my two brothers Jay and Greg. I remember seeing the monkey shrine, but I don’t think we climbed the second set of 100+ steps to get to the other shrines! I think we were too worried we were going to miss the only train back to Tokyo… Fun times!