Nikko is a town that is well known for its temples and many tourists who flock to them. This was readily apparent as there were more non Japanese than Japanese on the trains headed into town. They were noisy on the train and it immediately gave me bad vibes to be around them. Part of the enjoyment of traveling to Asia has been the relative dearth of westerners around.
In any case, I've been giving some thought on what to do tonight. We have three nights here, so I planned to spend the next two days exploring the town and its surrounding parkland. When I first brought up the idea of travelling to Japan, Stephanie asked me why I was interested. I explained that there was a lot of beauty to be found there. One of the first web searches that I pulled up, to demonstrate this, was the Ashikaga Flower Park. It is well known for its wisteria, a plant that blooms in May. The flower park is about two hours out of Tokyo. Nikko is slightly closer to the park, so I looked into the possibility of visiting it. Although it is clearly not May, and therefore would not have wisteria, their website advertised their nighttime festivities included a ton of lights adorning the gardens. People gave it good reviews, so I decided that it would still be a slight gamble, but would be at the very least, a different kind of experience.
On the way there, we had to take an eight minute train, followed by a 30 minute train, followed by a twenty four minute train. Google maps was amazingly helpful in figuring out all of the connections needed to get there! While waiting for our second train, we watched an old fashioned train engine back up and connect to a train.
We arrived at the garden at 5:00, just as it had become dark out. It is a very small, unknown town, and again we were the only westerner in sight. The trains were almost completely silent, even though they were fairly crowded. It was a short walk to the park.
While we noticed that a lot of the lights were fake flowers, rather than real flowers that were outfitted with lights, it was still a beautiful and creatively decorated garden. It wasn't a complete success, but it still was something different. There were tons of people around, all locals, in this out of the way location.
We stopped for some chicken and then hot chocolate for Miles. Miles was becoming very tired all of a sudden, so I decided to head toward the exit. I had napped on the train earlier, and despite encouraging him to do the same, he chose to watch videos and play on his tablet.
I made the mistake of trying to order soup to go, at a food area near the exit. As the soup was being prepared, I used google translate to ask for it as take away. Unfortunately, they only offered it in real dishes, to be eaten in the park. If we missed the next train, the one afterwards would be an hour later. Since the soup was only a couple of dollars, and Miles obviously needed the sleep, I decided to leave the soup at the counter, forgo asking for a refund, and just walked quickly towards the exit. It was my mistake so I would eat the cost(rather than the soup I guess). As we were exiting, a chef tracked me down despite the heavy crowds, to refund the money for the soup. He explained, in partial English, that since I was could not eat the soup, that I was to have a refund. I felt really bad. I told him that Miles was feeling sick and I needed to catch the next train. He wished us well, bowed, and we headed out.
The ride home was only two trains, which allowed Miles to sleep. Our hotel was a two minute walk from the station and Miles went straight to bed. He had complained this morning of not sleeping well, so I guess I should have pushed harder for him to nap on the train.
Tomorrow, we will walk into town and explore Nikko.
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