Traveling Together

By student Emily Lighthall

Our overnight trip to Nikko started off with a visit to the Toshogu Shrine, located in a forest, where both Shinto and Buddhist elements are incorporated. We were given time to buy lunch and meet back up at the bus, where we then headed to the Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa Memorial Park to look around. The building had been built as a vacation home for the Imperial family, with lots of rooms as well as a beautiful layout. We continued on to the hotel where we would spend the night and leave for more activities in the morning. The hotel featured an onsen, which turned out to be a very pleasant experience. We couldn’t wear our shoes within our hotel rooms, so we used the offered sandals as footwear. After a wonderful buffet dinner and breakfast, we packed back into our bus.

The next destination was going to be hiking in Ryuokyo Valley as well as visiting a few local shops, but instead we got rain. We had a lunch reservation at Ryuokyo Takimi Chaya. We ate several traditional foods including soba and tempura. We wrapped up the trip by participating in a wood carving session together at the Nikko Info Center. We had chosen our own designs during our previous day trip, so the tools and proper materials were all ready for us.

I enjoyed our trip to Nikko as well as the experiences we shared there. Visiting the villa was one of my favorite activities, since we could walk around the whole building and look at what each room would have been used for. My second favorite thing we did was visit the onsen, where we tried a new bathing experience that isn’t practiced in the United States. I’ve enjoyed our trip together and wish we could spend more time here –  all good things must come to an end, as they say.