what up world heritage

nikko is hella beautiful. since we had a school holiday (not that it mattered much, considering i don't have classes on thursdays anyway) i went with the ICC group for a one day trip up there, which is considered to be a necessary experience while in japan, and has been on my places to go list for a long time. plus, world heritage site! can't go wrong with that.

i got to the meet spot super early, which was silly considering we were already meeting SUPER EARLY. 7:45 early. drank some milk coffee, texted lucy (who had a far more adventurous time than me, haha) and then we bus-ed it up to nikko. and i made some friends along the way, and we commented on how many motion-sickness inducing turns the nikko mountains had.

arrival, gift shop, bathroom, and then we were on our way for the boat ride on Chuzenji. while it wasn't total fall colors yet, we did see the beginnings of some, and thus took millions of pictures! not that i don't do that anyway...




we were joined by about 200 elementary schoolers at one of the boast stops, who were all super cute, and within minutes were grabbing us foreigners to get in their class group pictures, and, with the encouragement of their teachers, greeting us in english, to which i replied with a "nice to meet you" and handshake. western style yo.



after that it was onto the main temple area. i have never seen such awesome forest/moss in my life. no joke.



i love old stuff, and nikko's temples were gorgeous. there was gold and red and pretty pictures everywhere. i goes slightly against my ideas of perishability and simplicity and all that stuff that i learned about Japanese art back in school, but it's still a fascinating sight. my favorite part of the temples was looking up at the ceiling in one larger one and seeing a giant ink painting of a dragon leering right down at me.







it was a little sad that some of the temples were under construction, but you gotta do what you gotta do, i suppose! also, nikko is REALLY NICE, and i REALLY WANNA GO BACK, but next time, hopefully without such serious time constraints and large groups of tourists.

we shall see~~~ i think winter wonderland nikko sounds nice :D

p.s. - sorry guys, i'm not good with words/expressing what i think about places. i just take pictures and let those speak for me haha