Nikko

This weekend, four of us went to visit Nikko – an old temple town and UN World Heritage site. The 90 km drive took about three hours, not because of particularly heavy traffic, but just because of the ridiculously low speed limits in this country. Unless you are on a toll road, the speed limit is generally 50 kmh, but sometimes 40 or even 30. And some drivers (usually elderly people in kei cars) don’t even make it to these heady speeds, choosing instead to travel at a stately 20 or 25 kmh.

Anyway, Nikko was really interesting. For the first time in a while, I actually felt like I was in Japan. The settings of the temples are amazing, in wooded valleys, surrounded by tall, mossy tree trunks. One of the storehouses at the site features a depiction of elephants, apparently carved by an artist who had not actually ever seen an elephant. Despite this, I think they seemed relatively lifelike.

One of the other buildings features some carvings of the lifecycle of the monkey, including the famous “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” – the three wise monkeys. I think our impersonation was almost as good…

The site area is also home to the shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a famous Shogun (warlord) who took control of all of Japan. The Shogunate founded by him reigned for 250 years from the 1600s until the Meiji restoration – the founding of modern Japan.