Nikko

After the cycling in Tokyo, I went to Nikko with Ruriko-chan on Sunday. Ruriko-chan is one of the two Japanese girls I met during the international party in Roppongi and we whom I met again afterwards do do a language exchange (English-Japanese). We met at the train station at 7am and took a 2h train to Nikko from there. Both of us were quite tired since neither of us slept very well the night before, but we ended up talking during the whole trip instead of resting before arriving to Nikko. Sunday was an amazing day because I got to visit Nikko, which is a beautiful town and I got to talk Japanese all day long!! I practiced the informal speech and learned loads of new vocabulary.

 

Arrival at Nikko with Ruriko-chan.

These monkeys are actually engraved on one of the temples in Nikko. They are, from right to left, Mizaru, Iwazaru and Kikazaru. Saru, changed to Zaru when attached after another word, means monkey. Mi comes from miru which means to see; Iwa comes from iu which means to say; and Kika comes from kiku which means to hear. The monkeys legend is international and I think the saying goes "See no wrong, Say no wrong, Hear no wrong" in English.

Several of the many temples of Nikko.

From Nikko, we took a local bus to reach the 'top' of one of the surrounding mountains where a huge lake and a big waterfall are to be seen. By the time we reached the top, the weather got pretty misty and cold so the pictures aren't great, sorry.

 

 The lake was huge and the water was clear blue but unfortunately it's not to be seen on the picture.

This is the big waterfall near Nikko. I have to admit I was surprised it was this big. I was expecting a small waterfall, and ok, It's not the biggest there i, but I personally had never seen such a big Waterfall.

Ok, I think that was it for Nikko. After that, we went back to Nikko and took the train back to Tokyo. Both of us were very tired by the end of the day but we still spent the whole trip back talking. This is one of the really fun things with Ruriko-chan, we never run out of things to tell each-other. I learn a lot of Japanese thanks to her, because she is so patient! This was an amazing day!!!