One of the reasons we chose the ryokan, besides the reasonable price, is that it really close to the historical area of Nikko that we intend to visit, which is full of Unesco World Heritage sites. The walk to the first temple, the Toshugu temple, is short but even in that short distance we find a few small nice temples tucked here and there besides the road. At the entrance to the temple is a five storied pagoda which looks impressive.
It is early in the morning so there is almost no one which means no lines when buying a ticket. The entrance is through the Omotemon gate where we present the ticket and are allowed in the exterior courtyard.
The courtyard we enter is surrounded by beautiful buildings all having Sacred in the name, the Sacred Warehouses, the Sacred Stables, everything is sacred here and quite interesting to us.
Almost immediately we notice one of the claims to fame of the site which is the original “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkeys carved above the Sacred Stables. In fact they are part of a story all carved in wood and represented mostly with monkeys above the entrance of the Stables. We try to decipher the story for a while before we slowly move towards the second gate and the interior courtyard.
As we turn the corner we notice the Ritual Purification Building where people go and do the ritual of pouring water on themselves that we notice everywhere in Japan. There are other buildings, all of them looking great, especially the wood carvings are impressive.
We stop and walk along the walls of the buildings examining them in depth. There are birds, real and imaginary, in different stances, all of them masterfully colored and carved.
The Yomeimon gate which is supposedly beautiful is unfortunately under renovation and hidden by scaffolding so we barely can see anything. Right before it we see a bit off the path the drum tower and Honjido further back but we intend to visit them when we return from the interior area. And so we pass into the interior area through Yomeimon and immediately notice the final gate Karamon which is exquisite with the walls carved again with beautiful wooden details.
However the way though Karamon is blocked and so we follow the exquisite wall towards another entry gate where after a bit of pointing we understand we can enter with our tickets.
While it is clear that this is not the way to the main hall we are curious what we will discover here that is worthy to be guarded by a separate entrance gate so we look closely and notice the well known (at least in Japan) sleeping cat. While it is a fine carving we cannot wonder if its claim of fame is not created due to the fact that it is one of the few mammals between the multitude of birds carved in the other panels. It stands above a door which is not closed or marked “no entry” so we decide to forge on with our exploration.
The door leads seemingly outside the temple however it is well worn path and well maintained so we decide to examine our materials to see where it might lead especially when we are confronted by a large number of stairs. We deduce that it leads to the tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, he of the James Clavell fame.
So we decide to proceed to this historically important tomb, Ieyasu being considered by many as one of the most important men in Japanese history. After a few exhausting flights of stairs we arrived in front of a shrine from which we follow some other tourists around it to find the entrance to the tomb.
The urn with Ieyasu’s remains is protected by a fence that you can follow around the burial location. Close by is a historical tree which is also venerated and has a prophecy attached to it regarding the bad things that would happen if it died (it is well protected but it is getting old….).
After this we climb down the stairs and go to visit the Main Hall that we missed initially as we were distracted by the side entrance.
The inner sanctum is strictly “no photos” and of course “shoes off”. Luckily it is not raining as we have to go barefooted a bit before entering. After admiring it for a short time we return to the Karamon gate that we admire more in detail before looking at the collection of carriages and then examining the renovation of Yomeimon.
The last place that we stop is Honjido where a guide takes us and a group of Japanese inside and explains the dragon drawings on the wall. Or likely that is what he is doing but he is doing it in Japanese so we have no idea what he is saying but at least we can look around and admire this nice little shrine. And then it is time to leave Toshogu shrine and make our way to the nearby Futarasan shrine, the next one on our list to visit.
