Tamas' cousin's daughter took a day off from school today to come with us to Nikko. Nikko is a bit farther away from Tokyo than Hakone and Kamakura, but there are some amazing temples there. The temples are up in the mountains, surrounded by tall cedar trees. First we walked around in a pretty Japanese-style garden.
The main temple that we visited was Tosho-gu, which was built as a memorial to a Japanese warlord. These buildings were unlike any of the other temples and shrines I had previously visited. There was lots of intricate detail, and everything was very colorful with lots of gold.
We saw the famous "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" monkeys carved into Shinkyusha.
In Honji-do, there was a huge dragon painted on the ceiling. A monk hit two sticks together, which made a high-pitched echoing noise. Supposedly, the accoustics of the building are supposed to make it sound like the roaring of a dragon, but I didn't think it sounded like one.
Again, there were lots of schoolkids here. A group of them approached Tamas and asked him some basic questions about his background in English (his name, where he's from, etc.). Afterwards, they all thanked him and one even shook his hand. They completely ignored me though. I noticed that they only go up to people who are not Asian.
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