When you want Japan's rich Religious History, Nikko covers it all.

Kegon Close — Kegon Falls, up close and personal. It seemed like a cave and falls in one.

We originally prepared a 9-day itinerary for our absolutely amazing Japan trip. The first 2 days were supposed to be spent in Tokyo but because we were so psyched about the trip and took the massiveness of the KLIA2 airport for granted, the plane gladly departed without us. My story “How to Miss a Flight to Japan” contains the blow-by-blow account of the funny incident. Thus, we kind of squeezed in as much Tokyo destinations as possible during the 2nd day. On our 3rd day, at least according to the original plan, we have pre-booked the 1-Day Nikko World Heritage Tour.

Yomeimon — This is the Yomei-mon or Higurashi-mon gate (Sunlight or Twilight gate) inside the Toshogu Shrine.

Date	Place	Preview
April 29	Airport Tour = Missed flight!
April 30	Tokyo Tour Tokyo Prefecture
May 1	Nikko Tour Tochigi Prefecture
May 2	Mount Fuji Tour Shizuoka and Kanagawa Prefecture
May 3	Osaka Tour Osaka Prefecture
May 4 AM	Todaiji Temple in Nara Nara Prefecture
May 4 PM	Kyoto Tour I Kyoto Prefecture
May 5	Kyoto Tour II Kyoto Prefecture
May 6 AM	Himeji Tour Hyogo Prefecture
May 6 PM	Kobe Tour Hyogo Prefecture
May 7	Hiroshima Tour Hiroshima Prefecture

It took almost 3 hours to get to Nikko from Tokyo. We had a very funny, amusing tour guide, named Amy, who can make you laugh by just her smile and almost disappearing eyes. As the tour guide, she needed to entertain us and introduce the activities for the day while we were in the bus. And every time she saw cherry blossoms by the window, she would immediately cut her sentence and said something like “Oh cherry blossoms on your right!” “Nikko is very famous for its World Heri — ah, cherry blossoms again on your left (while pointing at the window) — (after a short pause) Nikko is very famous for its World Heritage shrine.”

I realized, after meeting the cherry blossoms face to face, that they were not as pink as what I have imagined for the longest time but they were really, pretty beautiful. And we were so blessed still to be able to see these lovely petals in spite the fact that the season was already over (best time is March to April).

Green Shades — The scenery was super cool and refreshing to the eyes. So glad that we were still able to get a glimpse of the cherry blossoms.

Contrast to the tour’s itinerary, we had a huge lunch first prior to visiting the historical shrine since we arrived half past noon. The lunch was I think beyond my capacity but I was able to finish the full set! We requested for a vegetarian meal for my friend, Preity, when we booked the tour in advance.

Lunch Stop — The place where we had lunch was a quiet, seemingly suburban area.

Full Set — Such a space-consuming lunch set but containing delicious and varied viands. We had to occupy 2 seats in order to be comfortable.

Veg — Fresh vegetables for a complete and healthy meal.

Tempura — The tempura was really delicious.

Layer — This 3-layered set came as a surprise. Rolled tofu, vegetable, and sushi inside the treasure.

Soup — I love soups and this one was really delectable!

Below the dining area was a shop selling Japanese delicacies and other local products. We had a few minutes to spare and this becomes really dangerous at times because your eyes can see a lot of things to buy as souvenirs. Mikee, my friend, acted like a saleswoman encouraging us to buy the strawberry cheesecake worth around 1200 JPY (~12 USD) per box, which was enticingly displayed inside a glass box as if it was a jewelry. It truly looks yummy and so I bought 1 box.

Cheesecake — The moist strawberry cheesecake costing around 1200 JPY (~12 USD). I liked the taste of this although it was not of the same texture and make of the normal cheesecake. This one was closer to a moist sponge cake.

Then we were one of the last ones to get back into the bus. Oops. We traveled few minutes more to reach the shrine while Amy distributed radios and earphones to each one for the 100-minute guided tour.