And why should there be? Nikko, a three-hour drive from the outskirts of Tokyo, houses some of Japan's oldest temples and shrines, beautifully preserved forestry and natural treasures high up in the mountains. Some of the buildings -- many of which are covered in gold and statues of dragons and other animals -- date back to the eighth century.
One of the first sites at the ancient city is an old Japanese garden, and although it's very small, its charm is its simplicity.
Inside one cavernous temple were three large, golden buddhas. (No pictures were allowed, so my pictures are a little off-kilter.) Another enormous room was built so that if a traditional wood-block instrument is struck in the middle, its sound bounces off all of the walls for about 10 seconds. The ceiling was painted with a blue-and-white slithering dragon.
Without much explanation was an old stable/shrine adorned with monkey scultpures, and it housed the "sacred horse," a sign of good will from New Zealand, for reasons I don't know. The shining-white mare makes its appearance only four hours each day, but all it really does is eat and stare.
The rest of Nikko farther up the mountain is the stuff of postcards. One of the first places we passed was a bare open field that was the site of a samurai war in the Edo period.
After that is a spacious lake enclosed by more ominous mountains.
After the long journey through the historic trail, the reward is Kegan Falls, a mystical waterfall whose essence trickles down throughout the mountain. In a more macabre light, it's actually a popular location for suicides, which are heavily rampant in Japan because of a variety of reasons, like overwork, stress and depression.
But, the waterfall was gorgeous!
The day trip was calming, and kind of reminded me of the previous weekend, when I trekked through the raw nature of Miyajima island in Hiroshima. The seasonal ways of Japan make it so that there are two absolutely ideal times of the year: now, during the cherry-blossom spring weeks, and in the first few weeks of autumn, before it gets cold again.
But one thing I've missed terribly is baseball. I've been catching up with MLB news as much as I can, although it's impossible to get any highlights aside from Ichiro and Daisuke over here. And that made it all the more worthwhile to attend the Hanshin Tigers vs. Yokohama Bay Stars game last week.
In Japanese baseball -- if you can call it that -- the home and visiting teams sit on opposite sides of the field and take turns cheering their players on when they're at the plate. Nobody claps, but they instead bang together ThunderStix in choreographed rhythms while singing the teams' songs.
The Tigers, one of the better teams this year, trounced the Bay Stars despite being the visiting team (but having about 10 times as many fans present in their area, where we sat).
It was impossible to get a bag of peanuts (I imagine the stadiums don't want to clean up all the shells on the floor); the seventh-inning stretch was performed by cheerleaders who sang a Bay Stars pop song (though I led our section in the real "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"); and the beer, served cheap, is carried around by girls in neon-green uniforms.
I bought a Hanshin hat. Go Tigers.
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