Back in October, after realizing that my plans to see Hokkaido’s foliage weren’t going to happen (mainly for financial and transportation reasons), I decided to stick to somewhere closer to Tokyo, that area being Nikko. Nikko is an almost two-hour drive northwest of central Tokyo. I went during Japan’s “Sports Day” holiday in October. Luckily for me, our school was off for the week, so I took three days of it to see Nikko. The main area I stayed in seemed rather small but touristy, with the sound of the local train echoing day and night.

The hotel I stayed at was OK (not great, not bad, just OK). I was surprised to find that it offered an equivalent hotel bedside experience to that of hotels back home in the USA. People from the USA will know what I mean by this.

Lake Chuzenji

Dividing my trip into a different area for each of my three days, I started with Lake Chuzenji, going in a left-right direction. Lake Chuzenji contains the mountainous lake at the foot of Mount Nantai (the sacred volcano of Nikko), which created the lake about 20,000 years ago.

The foliage here was decent, although not as colorful in some areas as I had hoped. I’m still trying to figure out when autumn in Japan actually produces its fiery colors, according to location.

The first site I went to was Ryuzu Waterfall (竜頭ノ滝, Ryūzu no Taki). I actually ended up going past it in the wrong direction the first time around; hence, this is how I photographed the upper river area first.

After fumbling around trying to use Google Maps, I realized I had to go back where I came and found that I had passed right by the entrance area to the falls. Admittedly, this is not my favorite shot of this, but I just couldn’t get my regular camera set up right to get everything into frame and focused well enough.

After taking the local tour bus back towards the lake, I began my journey around the lakefront area.

I decided to take advantage of the lake boat cruise to see views that I otherwise wouldn’t have time to see.

Kegon Waterfall

The final site around the lake area was Kegon Waterall, the most famous of Nikko’s waterfalls. It is nearly 300 meters tall and is the only exit for the waters of Lake Chuzenji. To get to it, you must take an elevator down many stories deep into the canyon side before exiting the viewing platform.

Stay tuned for the second part of my Nikko trilogy, the sequel of shrines.