Nikko

Brad and I took a break from the heat in Saitama and headed up to Nikko to visit some World Heritage sites last week. We stayed at a traditional Japanese ryokan, which is similar to a bed and breakfast, and included a natural hot spring pool that is situated on the ryokan grounds.

We stayed on the 4th floor and had an amazing view of the river going past our building.

View from our balcony. The first night we stayed here there was a huge thunderstorm, so we just turned out all the lights and got to see some pretty cool lightning displays.

I'm not sure what the clicking noise is, but there are some cool lightning strikes in here. 

Brad on the bridge near our hotel.

On the bridge looking up the river. Our hotel is on the right, and you can see there's a little waterfall on the lower left. 

This is me in front of a 5 storied pagoda that houses the Five Wisdom Buddha. It was originally built in 1650 but was destroyed in a fire. This one was built in 1815. 

Ever heard of the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys? Well, this is where they come from. This is a wooden carving that's about 2x4 feet--smaller than I was expecting! The carving was apart of a few other monkey carvings that depict the typical life span of a monkey from birth to death. 

This is part of a building that is included in the revolving library building. It was built in 1618! We couldn't go inside this building.

Again, this is apart of the revolving library. 

This is the Yomeimon or Sunset gate because there are over 400 carving on it and people never get tired of looking at it. It was one of my favorites to see.

The entrance to one of the shrines. 

This is a bridge that only the emperor of Japan was allowed to cross. Now you can pay $5 to experience what he did, or you can just enjoy the scenery and take a picture with it. (And it is beautiful scenery!)

Anyway, Brad and I had so much fun! We have tons more pictures on Picasa, so take a look!