Wednesday 20/1

Charles: Today we wanted to go to Nikko which is an old town in the mountains north of Tokyo.

We took a Shinkansen line from Tokyo station to Utsunomiya and then changed to a tiny train that had only a few cars on the JR Nikko line. The whole trip took about 2 hours.

Christina adds: The train trips were both really lovely. The shinkansen was fun because it was a double decker train! The Nikko Line train was fun because there was beautiful scenery!

Charles: At Nikko we walked up a long road to get to the temple area. All the Japanese took a million buses but we thought it would be more fun to walk. We got really hot from being in the sun AND YET there was snow on the ground.

Christina: Snow! Just in a couple of little piles though. But snow! I played with it.

Charles: The temples were lovely but tricky to get to. They were all together on a hill in a big park which was quite pretty. We had to walk up one million steps to get to them. We walked through a few but we were a bit put off by lots of school groups that were around. Also, Nikko has very few English explanations or maps or anything. It was all a bit confusing. Even our little bit of Kanji was helpful working out the named of places.

After a few hours it started to get very cold and we walked back down the hill. On the way we stopped to look at shops. One antique shop was very interesting, full of weird old japanese stuff like payphones and watch parts and old dressforms.

It was interesting people watching on the train home. Christina fell asleep. The JR Nikko line is a local train so there were kids coming home from school and only a few tourists. Most Japanese tourists come via a non-jr limited express to Tokyo so it was quiet.

Christina: Once in Tokyo, we had to take a local train to Shinjuku. It was OK when we got on, but after two stations we got to know everyone on the train personally. There were 25 people per square metre and the temperature rivalled Canberra. We were broken people for about half an hour after that trip.

Charles: Back in Tokyo we went to Tokyu hands and a different Kinokunia in south Shinjuku. Christina finally found a cache of goth loli magazines and bought two.

Christina: I've been trying to find this one magazine, Deco Alice A La Mode. We finally found it in the OTHER Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. Obviously. I also bought the current G+LB for 1300 yen instead of for $45 in Impact Comics later this year. I'm not spending money, I'm saving it.

Charles: We decides to eat at a different kind of restaurant. It was sort of fast food sukiyaki. Everybody sat at a bar with a little electric stove in front of them and had a prepared sukiyaki frying pan put on the stove to cook yourself plus rice, salad and soup.

I guess Japanese people love diy restaurant food. Okonomiyaki, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, etc.

We ordered through a machine so we didn't actually know what we were getting until we got it. Chrissy got sukiyaki and I got pork and chicken. I think. I let mine cook to be well done which I think was wrong, but since I was the one cooking I figured I could do it however I liked.

The food was filling and tasty and we went home to rest our feet after so much walking!