Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Bridge near the town of Nikko


Cute firetruck


Five-story pagoda


Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.

I just loved the carved dragons on this building. Some of them really made me laugh!

Erica---this photo is for you!

Beginning of the procession. They do the procession twice---once in the morning going down the hill, and later in the afternoon they come back up the hill and return to the shrine.

More procession participants

Carrying the Mikoshi, the sacred portable shrine

Zach fell in love with this chicken in Nikko.

I'm standing next to the main road that the procession goes along, and we're waiting for the people to start coming back up the hill.

Returning to the shrine

These portable shrines weigh a ton---for real!

This guy made me smile.

Hello! I hope everyone is well. We're drying out after almost 8 inches of rainfall last night! Our street was a river this morning.

I wanted to share with you a bunch of pictures that I took on Sunday on another tour. This time we headed north of Tokyo to the town of Nikko, where they reenact a procession that transferred the remains of the famous shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa to the Toshogu Shrine. Over 1,000 people are in the procession. There are several shrines in the area, and we visited most of them. I got kind of "shrined" out by the end, but it was all very interesting. I thought the area was beautiful, and it was such a nice change from the city.