Despite the main season for visitors being Autumn, I knew that my best chance to explore the area was last week over Obon break. As a typhoon was approaching and was supposed to hit over the week of holiday, my cancelled plans for a hike up Mt. Fuji left my itinerary with a gaping hole. Luckily, just as it is a couple of hours south of Tokyo to visit Fuji, it was also a few hours to make my way up to Nikko - a place that had come highly recommended ever since I arrived in Japan.
A wonder of gold, nature, and sweaty tourists, Nikko is the perfect (relatively) undiscovered spot to beat out anything that is already in Japan’s usual tourism circuit. With shrines dating back to the year 767 and the mausoleum of the first Shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate: Tokugawa Ieyasu, Nikko is dotted with 103 temples and shrines and a history that will leave you speechless. Alongside the abundance of cultural features, Nikko is amassed with nature. Between the waterfalls and mountains, rivers and lakes, it really is a place that has it all - a fact that is continuously vouched for by a long list of names - of which I have now added my name to the bottom of.
