We were excited today for our first trip outside of Tokyo. Even more exciting, today our JR Pass activation begins, so we are able to use the JR rail system as much as we want for the next 7 days! We splurged a bit and got the "green" pass, which essentially enables us seating on the equivalent of first class cars that are available on longer journeys.

The only thing we needed to do was to reserve seats in advance for the long haul trains - this assured there were be seats available in the appropriate cars. Reserving seats was very easy and we did it by simply stopping at the JR offices in the stations and telling them which train we wanted reservations for. There is a great website called hyperdia.com that lists all the train information, so we used that a lot in our planning.

The trip for day was to Nikko, a renowned Buddhist-Shinto religious center a couple of hours north of Tokyo. The Japanese love Nikko, and the word "Nikko" is written in Japanese characters that mean "sunlight" and has become a Japanese synonym for splendor.

Our trip to Nikko started at our familiar Ueno station where we boarded the shinkansen train (bullet train) to Utsonomiya. Since we were only staying in Nikko for one night, we left the majority of our luggage at the Ryokan Katsutaro where we will stay again tomorrow night. This trip was a little under and hour, and wow do the trains go fast! At Utsonomiya we transferred to a local train for the remaining 45 minutes or so to Nikko.

The last few minutes of the ride on the train were quite spectacular as we wound through the mountains with their patchwork of legacy color. Nikko is a bit further north and at a higher elevation, so unlike most of the places we visited on this trip, the fall foliage was a bit past its peak -- but still beautiful nonetheless.

Left our luggage at Ryokan and went back to Ueno for our first Shinkansen trip! Wow those trains are fast! Our trip to Nikko started with a Shinkansen to Utsunomiya followed by a local train to Nikko. Upon arrival at Nikko we found ourselves at oldest JR station in Japan, which is a beautiful pink structure. The main drag of Nikko (if you can even call it that, this place is small) runs from the station for about a mile toward the main sights. Our hotel for the night, the Tokino Yu, was down in this area.

As we didn't have a lot of bags, we walked for 20 min to get to our comfy ryokan. We couldn't check in for a few hours, so we left our bag and headed out to explore. The weather was clear and crisp -- perfect for hiking up the hills and staircases on the way to the major sites and temples.

First we saw the famous red lacquered wooden Shinkyo Bridge . This site would have been a real looker a few weeks earlier with the peak foliage as a backdrop, but with the clear aqua water flower underneath, it still looked pretty good even though the koyo was a bit past peak. We then crossed the street and climbed the steep steps up into Nikko National Park.

We first visited the Rinno-ji temple which unfortunately is under construction for the next 6 years. This place is incredibly huge -- in fact its Three Buddha Hall is the largest hall in Nikko. Although one of the 3 main buddhas was on display up-close as a consolation for the construction, it really would be awesome to see this place when it is finished. Need to come back in 2020!

One nice byproduct of all the construction and scaffolding is that it was possible to climb to the top of the construction towers for a commanding view of Nikko. All in all it was a nice visit, but not sure if it was worth the $18 per person entrance -- the steepest of anything we paid in Japan.

We then moved on to Tosho-gu. Feeling a bit stung by the steep admission price and not particularly impressed with the value received at Rinno-ji, initially we were thinking of passing on the $13 fee to enter this complex. Wow are we glad that we decided to overcome our cheapness and pony up for the price of admission -- this place was utterly fabulous!

All stops were pulled when building this place -- supposedly for the grandfather of the key warlord who chose Nikko for his mausoleum. History says 15,000 artisans from all over Japan worked for years to create this flowery, hallucinatory, down-right beautiful complex. Entering through the main gate you first see a 5 story pagoda on the left. Proceeding up another steep staircase brings you through the main gate (the Niomon). On what I would call the "ground floor" are sacred stonehouses and a sacred stable that is adorned with carvings of 3 wise monkeys. Around the corner and up some more stairs brings you to the fantastic Yomeimon Gate -- lavishly decorated and glittering in the sunlight. We took our shoes off to investigate the Main Hall.

After a couple of hours at Toshu-gu, we headed to the Futata-San shrine and Taiyu-in Mausoleum. These are set amongst towering cedars and comprise numerous ornate gates. Lacking the garrishness of Toshu-gu, we found Taiyu-in pleasantly serene.

After a long day of sightseeing, we headed back to town to check in to our hotel. We had a nice big room, but still in the traditional ryokan style with tatami mats and no furniture. This room was equipped with a typical fancy Japanese toilet. These things are incredible in what they do -- heated seats, all sorts of post-business spraying options, and even music! They took a little while to get used to as Craig found out when he thought he was flushing but instead was greeted to a spray to the face originated from a little arm that emerged from under the seat upon pressing that incorrect button!

We ate a late lunch at a bizarre little restaurant which was decorated with little pieces of paper from visitors all over the world -- business cards, little notes, etc. We added our own touch by tacking our boarding pass stubs and rail seat reservation tickets to the mess. The owner was a very jovial woman who insisted on having us try on the "samurai warrior" hat and taking pictures with us. The food was delicious and we had soup along with another Japanese specialty -- yakitori which is grilled stuff on a skewer. We had chicken and it was yummy.

As evening fell on Nikko we learned there isn't a whole lot to do there. Everything seemed to close up by 6pm which presented some difficulties as we were dying for some coffee. We finally found a place open which served delicious coffee, but in a small little shop decorated with a hodgepodge of bizarre antiques. Not the place to hand out if you are afraid of clowns or creepy dolls! Still a bit hungry, we found another small local place open where we tried another local specialty --the yuba plate which included tofu in about as many different forms imaginable!

After the long day we were ready to crash. Tomorrow we had back towards Tokyo for a visit to another common site outside Tokyo -- Kamakura.