This is a lovely spot by the Daiyu River where I sat and read my book.
A huge boulder by the bank has a shrine nook carved into it — moss-covered and empty, now — and lots of Japanese (hard to see here) etched in next to it.
The roots of the trees on top of and next to the boulder have grown done into cracks in the stone.
And water flows out of the lowest crack, feeding the river below.
Whoever designed this (Disney Imagineers? Slartibartfast?) deserves an award.
The maps around Nikko look super ominous until you realize those are all Buddhist temples (and the swastikas are twisting in an inoffensive direction.)
As I approached Taiyu-in’s Niten-mon Gate…
Fu-jin the God of Wind goes, “This temple is FABU-lous!”
But then Komoku-ten the Protector of the West Sky is like, “Wait. Who invited you?”
And Jikoku-ten the Protector of the East Sky is all like, “Sweetie, you didn’t think you could come in the temple dressed like that, did you?”
And then Rai-jin the God of Thunder is all, “Bitch, please!”
I made my way to Kirifuri-no-taki. Perhaps not as impressive a waterfall as Kegon, but in some ways more beautiful, more serene, nestled away, forested mountains as far as you can see in every direction.
I stood, red-cheeked, in what I can only describe as “the driving drizzle” since it was only a spritz of rain. But the wind was blowing mightily.
The Japanese word “kamikaze” means “divine wind” and I can see now how a Japanese gale could have thwarted Kublai Khan’s Mongol invaders not once but twice.
Late one night, in the Stygian darkness, I stumbled on this impossibly chilling shrine & graveyard. Not nearly enough light to photograph then, but I captured it here the next day at twilight. (Twilight. Heh.)
To enter, one must cross a rushing stream of mountain water. Presumably to keep out either vampires or Nazgûl depending on your belief system (and I’m not here to adjudicate interdenominational disputes.)
Not even Japan and its tennis courts were spared. Makes sense. It’s the tell of us all.
This is the biggest sword I have ever seen. I paced it out at 9 (David) feet long.
TLC’s advice be damned, I visited the Kegon Falls where Lake Chuzenji debouches into the Daiya River.
Took a 100 meter elevator ride through bedrock down to the base of the falls at sunset. As impressive as anything I’ve seen in Yosemite, Yellowstone, or Multnomah.
There is an apocryphal story that a thrifty Golden Age movie producer1 once said, “A tree is a tree, a rock is a rock, we’ll shoot it at Griffith2 Park!”
I thought of that quote while riding through the Nikko National Forest.
Then I saw a pen of cows.
Griffith Park doesn’t have cows. They have horses. But still, a tree is a tree, a rock is a rock, right?
Then I saw a wild monkey.
No, this is definitely not Griffith Park3.
1 No, Griffith Park was not named for famed silent era director D.W. Griffith. In fact, it was named after unrelated wealthy mining investor Griffith J. Griffith who donated the land to the City of Los Angeles…and several years later was convicted of attempting to murder his wife.
2 This quote has been attributed to everyone from minor producer Abe Stern to “someone” King Vidor worked with to mogul Jack Warner to documentarian Al Gore. Okay, I made that last one up, but the attribution does remain disputed.
3 Yes, there are monkeys in the L.A. Zoo. That’s missing the point of the story. And, yes, yes, technically the zoo is located within Griffith Park. What are you, Huell Howser? Give it a rest.
This somewhat underwhelming (yet somewhat overwhelmingly pink) wooden edifice of the Nikko Train Station built in 1915 was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Coincidentally, I’ve been reading David J. Peterson’s The Art of Language Invention. He claims that the proper Welsh pronunciation of the “Ll” in “Lloyd” is like making the sound of an “h” and an “l” simultaneously. He goes on to say that the English were so flummoxed by this alien pronunciation that it inadvertently gave rise to an entirely new name: “Floyd”.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
The two English nouns on this sign made the trail irresistible. Abyss? Bears??? Sign me up!
What North America lacks — but what Japan shares with Europe — is the chance of rounding a trail in the middle of nowhere and stumbling upon something ancient & solemn carved in stone and covered in moss.
But then I stumbled on a Jurrasic Park paddock…
…so I got the hell out of there.
Kyoto was pleasant but Nikko is proving to be majestic as fuck. Plus, my room here is super kawaii.
I can see and hear the Daiya River from my window. And, I mean, just look at my room key. Just look at it!
It’s like being in a Japanese Twin Peaks. (And cue beauty cream commercial…)
Toured the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Beautiful, especially the gardens. But clearly the obsession here was with aesthetics. This is a stark contrast with China’s Forbidden City, every aspect of which screams You are minuscule and irrelevant and the emperor is the center of the universe.
Mythologies separated by half a world, but this immediately made me think of the serpent dripping venom on Loki.
