we took a 45mins bus up this steep mountain (it was like initial d on the bus) to go chuzenji. yoshiko's mom said it'll be cold so i got an extra sweater.
walking to lake chuzenji


and this is it



not much there so we went to shop at the souvenir shops instead and walked towards kegon falls.




and bought a manjuu from this cute little girl

she took a bucket for us to throw the plastic when we finished eating too! SO CUTE!!!! <3 <3 <3

and kegon falls is much better than the one i saw at mitake.



we bought this dango-lookalike thingy for 100yen which is actually konnyaku. which sucks.

the fish besides us looks more delicious.
then we fooled around with a souvenir machine, thinking it could imprint our names on our coins.

but actually, you have to buy a medal from her for like 500yen.

then insert additional 30yen to imprint on this machine. wheeps.

hung out at the area for a while before we left.

oh and sis managed to see her friend too!

what a small world.
so we then took the same bus down the twirling winding steep and dangerous slope, we went to toshogu shrine. again.
actually, not really. when we walked around the area after the matsuri, where we went to was actually rinnoji.




i think we were doing lots of funny things you aren't supposed to do at a temple.


and when we reached toshogu, it was too late to enter (still possible, just that not much time left till closing) so we just took the exterior.



awwwww toshogu is huge!!




and the last souvenir shop before we head home.

and passing by the stream for the last time on our way back to the ryokan

we took a nice ofuro and ate dinner before we left.

oh the maggie mee packaging is pretty unique here. you tear off one side to let water in, then tear the other side to let water drain.

convenient!

then it's byebye yoshiko, her husband and her dogs

yoshiko drove us to the station, and then it's byebye nikko. *sobs*

at least we have lots of souvenir to remember nikko, from yoshiko (",)

the next day, we packed and got ready for nikko!
we bought this nikko-kinugawa pass for about 4400yen, which includes all the bus trips in nikko and is valid for 4 days. the traveling time was about 2hours plus from asakusa.
\

we almost got to the wrong place had a nice obaasan not told us to change to the first 2 cabins (which actually will detach from the train and go in a different direction). phew! i love japanese.

on the bus

this is where we stopped for our ryokan

our ryokan was quite hard to find, but it was well worth the search. we kept seeing this turtle inn but didn't know that fu-sha was just near it, only that it has a very small signboard so it was easy to miss.


when we reached there it seems that we have the entire house to ourselves! for about 5000+ yen per person, it was certainly a good deal. the house was fully equipped with a nice entrance

washing machine,
nice futons

a big bathing room and toilet



small kitchen
and my sister was impressed with the toilet buttons

yukatas
kotatsu (that's the owner of the house, yoshiko by the way)

shower stuff
etc etc. lovely!

since we spent more than half a day reaching nikko and settling down, we decided to go for a nice onsen. yoshiko was nice enough to drive us over! my first onsen by the way. my sister and denzyl had already experienced the trauma of public bath when they stayed at kita urawa for the first 2 days.

ok, no pictures of the bath of course. although shocking, the after-effect was still great :D me and sis relaxed in the 'dining room' while waiting for denzyl.

and it seems that we shouldn't have waited there cos he waited right outside the shower room instead. we missed the bus and decided to walk out, and passed by a little bridge.


but it seemed that we walked the wrong direction, so we walked back all the way and headed in the other direction. it was a really rock-ety and narrow road, and i think we walked for very long before we saw this landmark, the dainichibashi (or 大日橋）and took some jumping photos there.




i'd love to include the jumping video i made for my sister but i can't convert it to a gif image. and i think she'll kill me.

then we headed past the bridge and realised the convenience store we wanted to go to was located on top of the hill above us, and we saw no route leading to it. tried to ask around, and this ojisan offered to drive us there! i love japanese! (did i just say that?)

so we bought stuff and finally headed back to our lovely ryokan to cook dinner. (and change into our yukatas!!) and we snacked along the way cos we were too hungry. it drizzled for a bit while we were walking home too. yikes.



and homeeee



trying to self-shoot our cozy dinner

as you can see, we aren't fantastic cooks but the results were still not bad. at least we had out fill. then it was time to work to set our kyoto-osaka plan into action before going to sleep.

so good night~