Nikko Visit.

Well we felt our first real earthquake today. It was a 5.9 in the ocean off the coast of Japan. Not sure what is was in Utsunomiya, but it did shake the house pretty good. We were just waking up when it hit so we laid in bed until it was over. OK actually I ran up and down the street screaming in my underwear to the amazed look of the neighbors...

We stopped in at Yamada Denki for our free weekly massage to start off the weekend. These chairs are awesome....Got my 10 free Yamada Denki points on my card and picked up a humidifier all in one stop.

I rode the Joba for a while while waiting for the family. It is like a bucking bronco that doesn't throw you off. It is supposed to be for exercise, but I have not yet figured out which muscles are actually being worked.

Sunday was off to Nikko. Nikko is in the mountains. It is about an hour drive to get there from our home. We were going for a winter festival that we heard about. On the way there we saw King Kong attacking a pachinko parlor....scary stuff.

To get to the festival we drove through Irohazaka. It is one of the roads in Initial D. The one with the jumping MR2. The road splits and becomes 2 separate one way roads. very curvy. In the movie the MR2 cuts the corners of the road and jumps from level to level. In real life you would ruin your car pretty quickly.

The view from the navi..

And this is the actual road.

In Nikko there are wild monkeys (really). As I was driving the children started yelling that they were seeing monkeys. I stopped at the first pull off, but we were not sure how safe wild monkeys are. As a result we were slow to get out of the car to take pictures. The waterfall below is were we saw them, but we were not successful in obtaining a photo. Maybe next trip.

The roads can become so slippery that your tires will cross each other so we had to drive carefully.

We also passed Nikko lake on the way. It is a beautiful lake in the mountains. We will have to go back in the spring and ride on one of the swan boats.

Finally we made it to the winter festival. It mainly consisted of ice sculptures. Yesterday we had a lot of rain. I think it made it to the mountains and affected the sculptures a little. This year igloos were build around the sculptures to preserve them. I guess last year many melted. They had a little damage, but mostly intact. It was very icy as well and a little difficult to walk. Still a very fun experience.

Even the ice penguin families have kotatsu's and mikan.

The family enjoying the cold...

Although we do not have snow where we live, the mountains get a fair amount.

Finally on the way home we stopped at the Imperial Villa. It was built in 1872. From what I can understand it was used as a temporary residence for the Emperor and for the crown prince's residence until 1898. It was very beautiful, I could only imagine living here with all the slide doors that open to the outdoors, especially in the spring. It would be amazing. I will say though now it was a bit cold..

We will have to go back in the spring to explore this area more. There are many things we did not get to see this time.

Have a good week...