Kaoru was up early as usual and went for a bath.  I dozed for a while and made my way to the main house about 730 for breakfast.  After an “ohaio gozaiemasu” and green tea we went in for a typical Japanese breakfast.  Sausages, sweet omlette sytle eggs, tomato, rice, some leftovers from last night, pickled vegetables…and an Orange Juice for me.

After eating we went back to our room to tidy up and pack.  Kaoru’s Dad then took me outside to show me his wood splitter.  We took some photos and got in the car for the train station.  It was a beautiful drive through the hills and the air was warming up as we got lower in altitude.  We got to the train station with aout 3 minutes to spare so no time for a proper farewell.  We were getting on at the start of the line so the train was waiting for us, and there were plenty of seats.

45 minutes later we arrived in Utsunomiya, where we changed trains for Nikko.  We had about a 10 minute wait before it departed, so our timing was perfect.  We arrived at Nikko about 1230.  Going through the ticket machine, I found my Suica card was 90 yen (less than $1) short (for a $20 trip).  So I had to wait in the fare adjustment line before getting out of the station.

Kaoru had planned on us buying a 2 day bus pass so we went to that line.  We noticed the train home tonight was full.  We weren’t leaving until tomorrow, but in case that train was full as well, we decided to get our tickets while we were here.  We came across a slight problem – they don’t accept credit card.  And I had planned to use plastic as I was out of money and the banks were closed.  Luckily Kaoru had enough cash on her, but it was a good lesson to learn.  Buying the tickets now was a good call in the end, as we were to find out the train will be full tomorrow!  So with everything sorted, we were ready to go sight seeing!

Nikko was very busy, and the cars (and buses) weren’t moving.  We decided to walk instead, which took us about 30 minutes.  We looked at cars along the way, and at the point we would have gotten off the bus, we were already a good 15 minutes ahead of it.

We crossed the road and started up the steps to the temples and shrines.  There was a lot of maintenance being performed so some of the structures were covered.  But we were able to pay our entrance fee and see the 3 wise monkeys and other carvings in structures.  We paid our entrance fee and climbed the steps to enter the main temple.  We then saw a line, and being Japanese, we had to join it.  It was to go up 200 steps to another area, which we thought “why not”?  We weren’t expecting to be taking the steps 1 by 1 for the next hour!  This was ridiculous.  It was made even worse by the fact that the top didn’t really have anything worth seeing.  We started the long walk back down the steps.

At the bottom there was another line to join.  We had to take our shoes off so this must be a temple.  The line was stationary for a long time, but eventually moved quite well.  Then it slowed and stopped again.  We concluded that it must be a group praying room, and luckily we were in the next group because I don’t know how much more standing around I could put up with!

A bit more walking and we found a short line.  This was for the Nakiryu – the crying of the dragon.  We were taken in to a room where it was explained the acoustics were such that a sound in the right place will echo, making the sound of the dragon crying.  This was demonstrated a few times to us.  We then moved on.

It was starting to get late, but there was one more place Kaoru wanted us to go to.  Futarasan Shrine is a place for couples to go to, to help fate tie their relationship together.  Unfortunatelly it was starting to get late, and it was closing, so we put it on the “tomorrow” list, and made our way to the bus stop.

About 30 minutes on the bus took us to the end of the line.  Our hotel was another 3 stops away, but the next bus going that way was about 50 minutes away, so we opted for walking it.  What we hadn’t planned on was for the (what felt like) sub zero temperature!  We had to walk next to the lake, which didn’t help things.  It took us about 25 minutes and we were relieved to arrive in a warm room to defrost.  We were told it was 3 degrees outside, but I’d argue it was colder.

Up in our room, I decided to enjoy the Japanese lifestyle and have a bath before dinner.  It had notjing on my one the previous day – I couldn’t even stretch out!  But it was nice to be warm again, and the beer went down very well.  I was starting to think of getting out when the room began to shake.  “Great”, I thought.  The place is going to collapse in an earthquake and I’m going to be stark naked in the freezing cold!  Once it stopped (about 30 seconds) I got out and asked Kaoru about it.  She was watching the TV and finding out about it.  It was a level 2 where we were, but a level 4 back at Fujisawa, so if we were at home, we may have been sheltering under the desk and table.  The footage from a camera on a bridge in Yokohama was shown, which exhibited a violent shake for a few seconds.

I got dressed and we went down to dinner.  It was included in our room price, but served at 630 so we couldn’t be late.  It was a nice meal, and good atmosphere.  Once we finished we returned to our room and watched some TV while I worked on my blog.  Kaoru had a bath while I enjoyed another beer, and looked out the window at the lake.  We eventually called it a night, knowing we had a long day ahead of us.