South Slav Exploring: Nikko Part 2

Nikko itself still had quite a lot of autumn colours, although it seemed that most of the visitor traffic had fortunately reached it's peak before we arrived. The guidebooks recommend getting up early and visiting the temple complex right when the gates open to each temple or shrine at 8 am. It's a good suggestion - even with fewer visitor numbers, it still got very crowed very quickly at Tosho-gu in particular, especially when the school groups arrived! Tosho-gu is where the famous see-no-evil etc monkeys are carved into one of the buildings. In fact, the whole temple has some really lovely carvings, and of course, lots of gold leaf coverings. We actually liked the Taiyuin-byo more as it was in a very impresive and beautiful location in a grove of pines and cryptomerias and consisted of many different levels climbing up the hillsides. It was decorated more by ornate carvings and paintings. Many of the buildings are under restoration, which seems to be the case in most places we've visited. The paint work in particular doesn't seem to last long so needs new coats.

Nikko was a great little place to explore, with many little touches hidden around the place. Is very rewarding to be wandering around some random path or street and find something totally unexpected and delightful. A lot of Japan seems to be like this actually - it never ceases to amaze us the little shrines and temples, gardens, food and beautiful architecture hidden amongst the modern buildings.