Nikko Things to Do

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You should try a little mindless fun at Nikko Edo Mura. People might look down on it but the various shows are worth your time. It is also fun walk around and pretend you're taking a stroll in Japan at the time of the Shogun, Ninja, and Samurai.

This is the other major site in Nikko (please read my other tip). Which one is more spectacular it's a toss up. The Tosho-gu shrine is the first shrine you encounter in Nikko. Located up a small hill. It's the most popular and most crowded site in Nikko. The price of admission is 600 yen but it is included in the World Heritage Pass. Several site line this shrine, so give yourself about an hour to see everything in a non rushed way. Be aware that some of the steps are somewhat steep, so use caution. Highly recommended !!!!!

This shrine was built in 1653. This shrine was built for Tokugawa Iemitsu one of the shogun of Japan. It is one of the 2 breathtaking sites in Nikko. Price for the shrine is included in the World Heritage Pass. But otherwise it is 500 Yens to get in. It takes about 20 minutes to get all the way to the top. The setting is somewhat mysterious, somewhat hidden in the hills of Nikko. This is a must do for those in traveling in Nikko. Once at the top there is a small temple, where you must take off your shoes to see the shrine.

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....The top site to see in all of Nikko is the Toshu-gu, the elaborate shrine complex built around the final resting place of Tokogawa Ieyasu, the unifier of Japan in 1600. Ieyasu loved Nikko's peaceful hills and shrines, visiting them when he could during his reign, and specifically asked to be buried here after his death in 1616, requesting a humble shrine. Of course, the ather of the Tokogawa Dynasty couldn't just have a nondescript place, especially since he was considered a Shinto god, so his descendants built an ornate complex of toriis, towers, pagodas, gates and worship halls that has to be seen to be believed. In fact, the torii at the entrance to the complex, built from granite, is the largest constructed during the Edo period and the five story pagoda, built in 1650 but destroyed in 1815, is noted for its earthquake-proof construction whereby its central pillar is suspended by chains at the fourth floor, oscillating to keep the tower's equilibrium during a tremor.
... Of course, if you want to see Ieyasu himself, you have to pass the sleeping cat carving and walk up several hundred steps to a quiet hilltop overlooking most of the shrine's buildings. There, you'll see a simple cylinder, guarded by a crane, where the famous shogun rests.

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Without even saying the words, everyone knows the three monkeys with their hand covering, respectively, their eyes, ears and mouth -- they embody the principle that if we "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil", we will be spared evil. But what I didn't know until I got to Nikko was that the first simian representation of those tenets of Tendai Buddhism were carved Hidari Jingoro in the early 17th century at the Toshu-gu. These three famous monkeys, Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru are actually just one panel in a series of eight cyclical stages of life -- something else I didn't know -- carved along the lentil of the stables holding a sacred horse at burial temple of Tokogawa Ieyasu, the unified of Japan and the first shogun of the Tokogawa Dynasty.
...After spending an appropriate time gazing at the three monkeys, we wandered around exploring the other carvings, not knowing where to start because they are meant to be cyclical. You might say the beginning starts with a pregnant female monkey and the first panel depicts the safety of childhood, with a little monkey sitting protected in mom's lap while she stands watch for danger. The second panel is of the three companion child monkeys seeing, hearing and speaking no evil, which is followed two monkeys playing in the trees and looking heavenward. The fourth carving reveals a lonely monkey maturing and striking out on his own. In panel five, we see him comfort a despondent friend, who is on the verge of killing himself while a third monkey menacingly looks away (maybe this monkey brought about the others bad fate?). The six panel is described "He is love sick" and shows a (presumably) male monkey sullenly watching a (presumably) impossibly attractive monkey play around in the limbs. Panel seven depicts two monkeys, one in rough waters, illustrating that the pair will sail through the difficulties of life together and it goes back to where she is an expectant mother and the whole series starts over again. All the panels are worth seeing and thinking about, and they made me recall often Thomas Cole's four-painting allegorical series on the journey through life hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC.

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The Jizo statues are a line of buddhas stretching several hundred meters along the Kanman walk in Nikko. These Buddhas have been there for hundreds of years, so some of them are in worse shape than others, subject to the vagueries of weather, moss growth and river floods, but they are still maintained by locals who adorn them with knit caps and bibs. Legend has it that the number of buddhas is unknown, because you get a slightly different number each time you count them. While we didn't try this, it's not too amazing that this should be true as how do you count the just a pebble with a hat and no statue or bib (apparently there used to be a buddha here, but now it's worn down to a nub)? I'm sure you count it as a half or zero one time, and maybe 75% or even 1 the next. In any case, the walk along this stretch of buddhas is very peaceful and could cause contemplation if you're not careful.

The Shinkyo Bridge, like the Torii at Miyajima, is emblematic of Japan. Curiously, I encountered it first at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which has Kawase Hasui's beautiful woodblock print, "Snow on the Bridge at Nikko Shrine" (1930). Later I discovered the Hasue made rather a thing of block prints of temples and shrines.

This tip is still under construction. Please check back later.

Kegon Falls are quite spectacular, with numerous smaller waterfalls as adjuncts to the principal 300' drop. (If you're old enough to remember "Twin Peaks", think Snoqualmie Falls.) The falls were created by lava flows displacing the Daiya River, at Lake Chûzenji in Nikkô National Park.