Teaching in Japan

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Tokugawa in All His Glory

The day following the night on the bench I went with my friend Mai to Nikko. This city is really popular and ancient. If you know anything about Japanese history this city holds the remains of the great shogun Tokugawa. By remains I mean hair and nails (I'm not sure what they did with the other parts of his body). This place is beautiful, it's in the country side and there are tree-covered hills as far as the eye can see.

After taking the bus from the station to the main shrine in the area we walked up this long pathway to the gates of the shrine. The place was a rip off, it cost around 10 bucks just to walk around for 30 minutes. The marginal cost of letting me in those doors is zero. I think they should charge less. But hey, I paid so I guess it was worth it to me.

Inside there are a couple famous carvings, the first is of three monkeys (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil) and the second is of a sleeping cat. I don't know why the Japanese people like the cat but there was a 20 person line just to see the cat. (I'll post pictures so that you can see the monkeys and the sleeping cat). Besides that there wasn't else much to look at except, for the beautiful designs that covered the walls inside and outside of the shrine. (I'll post pictures of that also).

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