Japan Times

Nikko is awesome... and huge. It's a temple town about 2.5 hours away from Tokyo. I was lucky enough to meet a pretty cool guy from Texas on the way up there. He was separated from his group of US exchange students, so he had to ride the rails with me to grt there (his group took a bus or something). I only spent about 3 hours there (and about 5 on the train), but it was comletely worth it. The gates and entrance ways to most of the shrines are supremely ornate. Most are gold and/or gold leaf, but it manages to come off without looking tacky. There's also a carving of the see/hear/speak no evil monkeys that I've been told are originally Japanese.
Here are the rest of the pics

 One of the big gates at Nikko
 Close up of the gate
 

 The monkeys 

Labels: japan