Date

2022-11-24, Thursday

Distance

32.35 km (2642.49 km in total)

We rolled straight into the heart of Nikko, down a wide shopping street buzzing with both local and international tourists. For a weekday, it was packed — I can only imagine how overwhelming it must get during peak season. Amidst all places I have hitherto visited in this country, Nikko has the highest concentration of foreign nationals. It seems that it has for a long time been a popular touristic destination well before the pandemic, but why this is the case intrigues me even after my visit.

You may get what I mean if you, like me, also prefer Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺) over Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺) in Kyoto city and have always wondered why people think the latter much more favourably than the former. I gather that those who see wonders in humble aspect would not trust all the merits of an architecture to the lavishness of gilded appearance.

The main attraction in Nikko — the Nikko Toshogu (日光天照宮) that posthumously enshrines Tokugawa shogunate’s founder Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) — was unapologetically opulent: it has such a lavish gilded appearance with elaborated carvings painted in flamboyant colours. For me, it’s more of a display of power than a manifestation based on real principles of piety. It seems to be a site of educational value too; 3 large groups of primary school students wearing uniforms and distinct hats have arrived since early morning, together with many other Japanese and foreign visitors. The space is large enough to accommodate this much people.

Despite being a state-church separation upholder who is not completely comfortable with the concept of deifying deceased human beings, I decided to visit Tokugawa’s shrine (and tomb) now because on the one hand, kami manifesting itself in the human form is an important aspect of Shinto religion; I think it wouldn’t do my system of belief harm to witness the embodiment of this belief for at least once in my lifetime. On the other hand, once Japan resumes its popularity as a touristic destination, more people will visit this place and I would not want to come anymore. We got here at the right time too. The interior of the five-storied pagoda and the inner shrine which is much humbler and to which some 400 years ago only Tokugawa alone could access were exceptionally open for visit. We also walked around Tokugawa’s tomb which has not been open since he was buried.

The nearby (Buddhist) Rinno-ji (輪王寺) and (Shinto) Futarasan-jinja (二荒川神社), together with Toshogu make up the UNESCO Nikko World Heritage Site, but we didn’t have much time nor energy to visit the the other two in depth. I feel that the others’ architectural style would please me better though — at least, by appearance.

Our plan to grab lunch at a yakitori spot fell through — it was unexpectedly closed. So we crossed the street to a stylish little curry bar run by a cool, silent chef who politely turned away walk-ins once the place filled up. He cooked each omurice solo, and after waiting for what felt like forever, we finished our meals in ten minutes flat.

Before heading out of Nikko, we went to a local bike shop to get my break fixed. I could change the break shoes myself but the cable had to be installed by a professional. Sadly, the owner of the shop and the only bike mechanician in Nikko was away; we had to wait almost 2 hours for him to come back to spend merely 5 minutes on replacing the cable. (Electric) bike rental seems to be exceptionally popular in this town, yet bike maintenance is entrusted to the hand of one single bike shop owner. In Japan, we have come across a myriad of such small scaled bike shops, which could still be open while the owners are away (in this case, it would be another acquaintance looking after the shop), but would not be able to perform tasks that require more specialised knowledge. Moreover, we were charged a hefty fee of 1650 yen for a cable and the service; this makes other bike mechanicians who charged much less after having spent much more time with our bikes very generous.

It was entirely dark by the time we reached tonight’s camping location: Romantic Village in Utsunomiya. The name may sound charming, but trust me: it’s not exactly a dream spot for camping overnight. A complex consisting of 4 parking lots, ton of restaurants, shops, hotels, hot spring and more, it by far the largest roadside station we have ever seen, and apparently the ‘richest’ one that has enough of resource to hire nighttime guardian who came to our tent at 9 pm to chase us out. We couldn’t properly understood the reason, but after a difficult communication, we came to understand that camping was not allowed at this place that's more of a theme park than a simple roadside station. When we were packing up unwillingly but obediently our stuff which took a lot of time, he changed his mind and said that if we leave in early morning, we could move our tent to a more discreet spot of the village. So we did.

The full take — 151 more photographs from this day