Nikko

Nikko is stunning! I’m so glad I spent one of my days in Japan there. I never would have considered it, and I might not even had known about it if it hadn’t been for my friend’s recommendation. After doing a search for images of Nikko, I was sold.

Nikko looked like the lush,green, and quiet zen forest full of UNESCO wonders I wanted to explore, and it totally was.

Even though Nikko can be seen as a day trip from Tokyo (the train ride took less than 2 hours), I went the night before so the whole day would be open to explore all the temples.

While in Nikko, I stayed at one of my favorite hostels in Japan. Along with picking you up from the train station and driving you to the temples, the real selling point for me was great clear stream perfect for swimming right behind the property. If you need a place to stay in Nikko check out Nikko Zen Hostel.

One of the best parts of that whole day was waking up in the morning and going swimming under pine trees in crystal clear water. If I didn’t have a ton of temples to explore, I could have swum all day and been perfectly happy.

Since I didn’t swim all day, let’s talk about Nikko. Nikko is the burial-place of Japan’s first Shogun ruler and full of soft mossy forests, ornate temples and one of my favorite things- UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

There is so much culture and beauty at every turn, it was stunning. Even with a lot of people walking around, the whole place still had a great feeling of stillness.

One of the other very cool things about Nikko’s temples, is that the origin of the “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil,” monkeys can be found here.

What I learned there is that these monkeys are the second panel in a series depicting a cycle of family, love, and life that remains remarkably deep and significant to modern life.

Within this lush backdrop, I loved how ornate the temples were. There were so many temples and shrines within the complex, it’s really beautiful. You could easily spend all day there.

I really liked the black branches offsetting the white and gold on the doorway of this temple.

Nikko is full of contrasts that create a beautiful calming harmony. The bright temples fit seamlessly into the greenery, even with the crowds this place feels quite and serene, even in the middle of summer there is one bright red tree standing proudly.