Nikko

Another Day trip, this time to Nikko - home of lots of famous temples and some monkeys. Maybe i'll add more information later, but its 12:40am now so for now you can just look through the pictures and make up your own history.

pictures here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Nikko/

P.S. There's a new poll! >>>>

Hiking

Wait a minute...that picture's green!...surely that can't be Tokyo?! well yes Dave you guessed right in your little conversation with yourself, that isn't Tokyo. I ventured away from the bright lights into the countryside! yes it does exist in Japan despite Tokyo being the centre of most people's attention (a little like London, all you travellers note other places do exist in the country you know - 'Go to London, I guarantee you'll be mugged or not appreciated').

On the first day of my holidays I pulled myself out of my comfortable bed at 'silly o'clock' in the morning and caught a train with 6 Japanese people and an American fluent in Japanese (one of the many times in this holiday that I realised just how little Japanese I actually know), after the sparkling conversation on the train for a couple of hours, we hiked along a river up to an Onsen (hot spring). Where we split into two groups (no bathing suits in these baths so the boys and girls are in different pools).

I'd been to an Onsen before but those two occasions were in a very quiet hotel where I had the pool to myself, and in a private Onsen with my girlfriend who (cover your ears mother this may shock you) has seen my rude bits before! So this was my first time to expose myself to a group of 20-30 men.....yes it was, don't be silly!, no jokes here please. To make it more interesting of the 7 people I was with there were 3 ladies and 4 gay men.

Surprisingly everyone resisted throwing themselves onto me and I emerged both physically and mentally unscathed from my experience!

More pictures here....
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Hiking/