As you leave Rinnoji, the path leads you naturally to Togoshu, which was nice. They were situated close, with a beautiful line of trees framing the stone Torii gate. The Toshogu shrine is quite large and extravagant, and it was the highlight of the trip.
Inside the torii and to the left was a five story pagoda, representing the earthly elements and heaven. It was incredibly detailed in its carvings and beautifully colored. Here is a detail of the pagoda.
Omotemon gate and Nioh statues – This was the large gate we entered to get into the main complex. The two demon-looking things are Nioh. And there were some really weird elephant carvings around it as well.
Detail of Nioh’s face
Detail of one of the carved elephants
Past the gate was the three sacred warehouses, one of which had this bizarre elephant carving. Here is a shot of the warehouses.
Here is a detail shot of the elephant carvings… They were horrible as elephants but very beautiful!
One of the most famous things about the Togoshu shrine is the three monkeys adorning the sacred stable. The carving depicts the monkeys with the hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil theme. Here is the stable.
The actual carving is only a small part of the stable. The carvings were very beautiful and detailed though. Here is a shot of the monkeys.
From this area, another torii gate lead to the main shrine area.
Youmeimon Gate to the main shrine – has 500 sculptures on it. One design on one of the columns is even upside down as an intentional perfection not to anger the spirits.
The main shrine (wedding hall I think) let us in, but we couldn’t take pictures inside. After that, we decided to pay the extra 520 yen to get into the Okusha Inner Shrine, where Tokugawa’s remains are kept.
Here is the little sleeping cat that guards the entrance.
After the kitty was a long walk up a mountain to get to Tokugawa’s memorial.
After a small prayer hall and building, you walk around the back to find the container of Ieyasu’s ashes, the Okusha-houtou.
After that, we pretty much headed out of Togoshu Shrine. We tried to visit Futurasan, but it was closed. For more photos of the temples we visited and the closed temple Futarasan, you can visit Flickr.
I do want to end this Nikko blog with a photo of the Shinkyo Sacred Bridge. It was so gorgeous, and I loved it. We weren’t allowed to walk on it. I suspect it was closed because of snow and ice.
Oh, and one more for the road… of the clouds sitting over the mountains behind downtown Nikko.
You kind of have to see that last one big to get the full effect. Either way, sorry for the photo spam. I’m done for now. This weekend, I will be in Hakone. I will post something later about the sights I’ll be visiting while I’m there. Hopefully, I’ll return with more photos and descriptions.
Oh, and getting home was almost as scary as getting there. We took an earlier train back than anticipated, because they were worried that we wouldn’t make it if we took a later one. And it ended up being local for half the way back. Luckily, we only had to transfer once, and we made it back okay! Overall, it was really an adventure.
I plan to go back to Nikko some time in April or May, when the botanical garden is open, because it has 3,000 varieties of plants and flowers supposedly.
Anyway… Ja, mata!