day trip to Nikko

If it was not painfully obvious from the title, I took a day trip to Nikko today from Tokyo. About two hours away and only 40 bucks to see everything and ride the train just about everywhere in the environs, it's a pretty good deal, considering Nikko has some of the awesomest temples this side of Kanto. Nikko also just happens to be one of the most popular tourist sites in the country, and most of those tourists are Japanese. If you're wondering why, I should also mention that Tokugawa Iesyasu himself is buried there. Not to mention the presence of numerous memorable cultural treasures, such as the carvings of the San Zaru (Three Monkeys: no see, no hear, no speak: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys) and the Nemuri Neko (Sleeping Cat: carved by Hidari Jingoro, a famous left-handed sculptor from the Edo period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidari_Jingoro). You may not detect it from the electronic text, but a vein of sarcasm runs through the last line. Although these carvings, and other such "sights to see," may in fact have great importance to Japanese culture, they are nonetheless quite small and would be fairly unnoticeable if it weren't for the 500 yen ticket to enter the area blessed by the Sleeping Cat's existence, not to mention all the Sleeping Cat souvenirs that line the temple walls around it. But i shouldn't be so negative about the sights of Nikko, for there were some very extraordinary attractions: the Naki Ryuu (Crying Dragon), a painting on the ceiling of a temple that supposedly resonates the sound of two wooden blocks striking (a Buddhist monk strikes them as we all look ceiling-wards... perhaps it's the architecture that's the culprit, but who's calling for a detective?); the hyper-cool decorative carvings of dragons, tigers, and old men riding tigers that line most of the temples; the equally cool 10-foot statues of furious gods with Dragon Ball Z-style flaming hair; the forests of thick towering pines that surround the grounds; the hordes of schoolchildren and old women that swarm like locusts around anything of the remotest interest.
After having an overdose of traditional Japanese culture (aka "templed out"... a term used among jaded gaijin), i headed to a stop on the train called Kinugawa Onsen. Onsen means hot spring, and i desperately wanted to soak in hot medicinal water after the long day. When i got there, a policeman told me that the onsen was closed, and i moped over to a manjuu (little cakes filled with red bean paste) store to gawk at sweets awhile before my train came to go home in defeat. I started talking to one of the clerks about onsen and macha, and she dragged another clerk into the conversation who ended up offering me some salty plum macha with little breadcrumbs (delicious!) and driving me to the local bathhouse so i could get in an hour or two with some old naked Japanese guys before going home. Many Japanese are unbelievably helpful and go tremendously out of their way to give you a hand. The bathhouse was everything and more--aside from the pleasures of soaking in an outdoor bath surrounded by forest, i met the man who runs the Snoopy Store in Harajuku. I bowed to the Tokyo manager of Snoopy consumables, and clutching a new bottle of freshly vended cold green tea, i boarded the train back to Asakusa and my hostel.