朝9時前に宿を出て華厳の滝へ。朝早いので観光客も少なくイイ感じ。エレベーターで100mほど下がると007風の地下道が。さらに階段で
滝壺近くの観瀑台まで。なるほどの迫力。でも私は水しぶきが落ちて行く様子を上から眺める方がスキ。
無数のアブに驚かされながら中禅寺湖の周りを30分ほど歩いて
イタリア大使館別荘記念公園へ。栃木県が2千万円で購入し、1億5千万円かけて修復。いろんなスゴイを感じました。ちかくにあった
現イギリス大使館の別荘は純和風。うらやましい。
日光市営の
やしおの湯。露天風呂もあって、いつも300円で利用出来る日光市民がうらやましい。雪景色だとサイコーだろうな。
雨がポツリポツリ。日光東照宮へ。前回見れなかった眠りネコを見て、200段もある石段を杉の密林を眺めながら、雨に濡れながら、とりあえず急ぐ。辿り着いたのは
家康が眠っている墓。石段を造り上げた人々、上って来た人々そして家康にもお疲れさま。帰りの電車で鱒寿司を食べる。肉厚。
We arrived at Kegon waterfall around 9am. There were not many tourists yet. The lift took us 100m down, then we walked along an underground passage which reminded me of 007, then went down the stairs to
the observation platform at the bottom of the waterfall. It was nice but I prefer the view from the top, I enjoyed to see water drops falling down.
We walked for half an hour along the Chuzenji Lake to the
Italian Embassy Villa Memorial Park (too many horseflies!). Tochigi prefecture bought the house (quite small size) for 20 million yen (£s;98,266), but they spent 150 million yen (£s; 736,998) to refurbish it. Very interesting in many ways... There was also the
British Embassy's summer house in active service. It was proper old Japanese style. Nice.
We went to a municipal hot spring
Yashio no Yu 'Yashio Hot Spring'. It would be great to see a snowy view from the open air bath in wintertime. Nikko citizens can use this place for only ¥300.
We hurried to
Nikko Toshogu Shrine in a bit of rain. After seeing the
Sleeping Cat, we walked up about 200 stairs surrounded with a dense forest of Japanese cypress trees, there was a
huge grave of
Ieyasu Tokugawa. I felt that there was some special power in the air.
The trout sushi we ate in the train home was delicious.
