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We took another sightseeing trip today. The weather was only half bad, so it was quite a lucky day.

We went to Nikko for the day. We set out at 7am which is quite an effort for us non-early morning people. Patrick forgot to buy a drink before boarding for the two hour long train ride, and upon realising there was no vending machine on board, was suddenly dying of thirst.

Unfortunately the train only stopped very briefly at five stations along the way. At each station, Patrick dashed out the door and tried to buy a drink from the vending machine but each time it ate his money and he had to get back on the train empty handed, and increasingly unhappy.

Eventually he decided to go and get a drink from the bathroom despite the fact that it said “Do Not Drink The Water”, so we spent the rest of the day hoping he wouldn’t die.

He didn’t, so the day was good.

We also spotted from the train a group of businessmen in their suits out doing their morning exercises on the room of their building. Such a sight to see!

In Nikko we visited The Shinkyo sacred bridge, which is now on the corner of town, so surrounded by traffic… not quite what we expected. It was lovely though.

We also wandered through all the local shrines and temples and saw the famous “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” carvings and the little wooden cat, which is for some reason I don’t fully understand yet, a National Treasure.

The weather turned grey and drizzly as soon as we left the temples, so we headed home instead of to see the local lake and waterfalls. I think we will go back another time to see those… autumn hopefully.