Nikko Round 2 and an AFS Reunion

Every time I look over at my desktop calendar at work, I have to do a little double-take: what do you mean it's already July? And yet the mind-melting midday temperatures and humidity consistently remind me that, yes, it is in fact the height of summer in Japan. That means it's time to take daily frigid showers and do whatever it takes to not miss garbage disposal day or risk your apartment smelling like a decomposing trash heap.

I know, that's the image everyone definitely wanted when they opened to this post. So I'll move on (but, in case anyone is interested, you can put food scraps and stuff you don't want to smell into your freezer until you're ready to throw it out!)

Moving on for real this time.

A few weekends ago, I got a shot at redeeming the fun yet somewhat haphazard Golden Week Nikko adventure.

Having learned from the previous trip, we bought train tickets in advance and confirmed exactly where and when transfers would occur and this time the trip from Tokyo to Nikko happened in a completely painless two hours (rather than four).

At my insistence, the first thing we saw was the Toshogu--the thing we were supposed to have seen last time. And boy. It's so gaudy and gilt that when the sun hit the structures just right it was downright painful to look at.

The famous "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" carving.

Another famous carving, this time of a sleeping cat.

PC: Troy Stade

From left to right: Troy, Fiodar, Viktor, Tijn, Adonay and me! I felt very short in this group!

Once you finish taking in the sparkly splendor of the Toshogu's main buildings, there's a set of steps  (either 207 or 270, I don't remember which) that take you up the mountain to the Inner Shrine Pagoda, underneath which Tokugawa Ieyasu is buried.

Detail of a torii with the Tokugawa family crest, three hollyhock leaves in a circle.

More than a few visitors turned and prayed to the pagoda/ the deified spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu before they descended.


One other new Nikko location we checked out was the Kanmangafuchi Abyss, an approximately 100-meter-long volcanic gorge.

Along one of the upper trails is a long row of jizo, stone statues of Buddhist bodhisattva that, among other things, care for the dead. There are supposed to be "about 70 of them," but apparently if you try and count them you will always get a different number. Perhaps for that reason these particular jizo are sometimes known as the "Ghost Jizo"?

Wait...what's that?

Zoom out a little more...

Little more...

The last real update of note involves a reunion that has been seven years in the making.
This past Sunday (another scorcher) Troy and I were able to meet up with Valeria, who was an AFS exchange student in 2011-2012 in Japan with us. Longtime readers might recall that she's made more than one appearance in the 2011-2012 iteration of this blog. Since we were in neighboring AFS chapters we did quite a few activities together and became quite close. And now here the three of us are again, posing in the Imperial Gardens and looking spiffy in sunglasses:

When I tell people that one of the best and most rewarding things I ever did was study abroad, this sort of reunion is exactly what I'm talking about. Even though we were only in Japan together for half a year, even seven years later it was a seamless process to pick the friendship back up. It sounds cliche, but, it really is the people you get to know and cherish, across borders and languages, that make travel really worth it. So to everyone who is even considering whether or not they should study or live abroad, even for a little while, my answer is unequivocally "YES."

Later in the day, since it was miserably hot and I had been craving kakigori (Japanese shaved ice, like a snow cone on steroids) for literal weeks, we made a pit stop at the Toraya Cafe in Shinjuku for some delicious strawberry and condensed milk (with a substantial dollop of red bean paste)-flavored icy goodness:

The first of what will likely be many kakigori for me this summer.

And one last parting shot...

PC: Troy Stade