Nikko, days 3 and 4

Third day started from breakfast too ;)

Salad.

Squid.

Natto: Fermented soybeans with somewhat strange taste and not very pleasant appearance.

Some tofu dish.

Bacon.

Scary looking fish head with teeth. Pretty tasty bits of meat were still left there.

Back in the room - new cookies.

The cookies are actually in the shape of monkies.

This day we decided to return back to Nikko again to better inspect the bridge we saw the other day that looked interesting, so we hopped onto the morning bus that went to Nikko station.

The driver stopped on a mountain road for a minute to show us these waterfalls.

Both of the waterfalls together. Sadly we don't know the names.

And here we are at the Shinkyo (Sacred) bridge. Part of Futarasan shrine, it's one of the three most beautiful wooden bridges of this type. It was built in 1636.

The bridge was sacred and except during a special religious events, only Shogun or Emperor and people with him could cross this bridge. At the entrance to the bridge there is a special stone called Gejo Ishi, that commanded all visitors to the sacred Nikko area to dismount or to come our of their vehicles before crossing the bridge.

It so happened that a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony was being held at the bridge when we arrived.

The wedding is over, so we can take more pictures of the bridge and surroundings.

Daiya river.

Then we crossed the highway and went up to the Futarasan shrine territory.

I am not sure what these are, but some sort of a shrine property, I guess. The sign nearby implied horse stables.

The lone small red fallen maple leaf caught our attention.

Stairs somewhere up.

Broom at the gate ;)

And we are back to the bridge, that's now open to the public (for a measly 300 yen per person).

Sun went out and we got a shot of this mini shrine on the other side of the road.

This is the main bridge that everybody uses these days.

Some more pictures with sun.

Japanese Romantic highway in Nikko.

Walking from the bridge towards Nikko station.

Nikko city hall.

Certainly land is either cheaper here or this is one very rich household.

Space-saving gas station at Nikko station.

Back at Chuzenji a craftsmen etching his signature on a wooden plate we purchased.

And dinner time.

Some starters. Notably a clam and some beef.

Sashimi dish from fugu fish.

Some clam soup.

Fried fish that had almost no meat, but was full of fried roe.

Shabu-shabu.

Chawanmushi.

Mandatory yuba dish.

Rice.

Seasonal fruits (pear and persimmon) and ...

Cake for dessert.

This concluded the day 3.

The day 4 was our last day at Nikko, with early checkout too.

Breakfast was very European.

Yogurt.

Soup.

Omelette with sausage and ketchup.

Last look at the entry hall in our room.

Before departing to the station we took a short tour up the mountains to the Yumoto hot springs (apparently in all hot springs areas there's at least one yumoto spring (characters read as hot source).

Lake Yuno, despite what the name suggests, it's not hot.

Yudaki waterfall, also not hot. It's about 70 meters high.

Pretty majestic, actually.

Mt. Nantai with lava tracks.

Near the Kegon Falls - a very low cloud covers the area.

And after that we went to Tokyo to move into our rental apartment that we have reported about already.

As you might have noticed, at this time of year Nikko itself still had decent fall colors, but trees in Chuzenji area mostly lost all the leafs already, so to get best results it's probably best to come there at the end of October.

Karaage that Ksusha had for dinner that day.

This concludes today's report.