The town of Nikko.

Last week, Robert came home with an offer. The teachers at his elementary school were visiting Nikko to plan a trip for their students. If John and I wanted to tag along, we were more than welcome to. Pfft, heck yeah!! I thought. No brainer… we get to see more of Japan! And we don’t have to pay for train fare!! “Well, let’s just think this through a little more”, my more logical half pondered. He brought up things like being stuck in a car for six hours, it taking all day, blah blah. I think it boiled down to me calling him a party pooper and sticking my tongue out at him (the sophisticated, classy lady that I am). So on Saturday morning, the three of us put on our flip flops and headed down to meet Robert’s co-workers (we’ll skip the part where we were all late to meet them two minutes from our front door). 

When we came to the station, I spotted a tiny sports car. “Dang,”  I thought “I hope that’s not our ride”. But because Murphy is always on my side, throwing down his stupid LAW every chance he gets…OF COURSE it was our ride. For those of you who don’t know, I’m not the best traveler. Which is a shame, because I love to travel. You name it: car, boat, train, airplane… If the conditions are less than perfect, you can find me clammy and white-knuckled, concentrating on breathing and not having a second taste of my last meal. We were no more than .02 seconds into the drive (oh, and since I’m the smallest I got the middle of the back seat), when John looked at me with wide eyes that said “are you going to be ok?”. I blinked a loonnnggg blink (which translates to “heeeyyyylllll no” if you’re not fluent in Jaquielyn-speak). 

We got on the freeway and the teacher let his car speak for herself. It seriously felt like we were taking off on a roller coaster. It was so fun!!! So fast and exciting!!... for the first five seconds. But then it was three hours later and my breakfast was begging to see be splattered on Robert’s shorts. Luckily everyone escaped vomit-less (thank God for Mitsuya Cider).

Oh and the fun didn’t stop there. There is a famous road in Nikko with 48 twists and turns. Essentially, Lombard Street ON CRACK. Both John and Robert passed out on the road… I was not so lucky and experienced every. Single. One. of those 48 turns.

Furreal

 Some interesting history though… The ancient Japanese alphabet used to start with the letters “I”, “Ro”, “Ha”, hence the name “Iroha-zaka Winding Road”. There were 48 letters in the ancient alphabet, so 48 turns in the road. At each turn, there is an alphabet letter. Fancy that, education while you hurl.

 

So beautiful!

 Nikko was gorgeous, and I’m glad we went. The hike felt great, but also made me a little homesick. Breathing the fresh mountain air only reminded me of Tahoe, and our summer days rock climbing there. The shrine was breath-taking and awesome. We saw so many cool things that I wanted to buy, but I ended up with only cookies to give my favorite school as “omiyage”.

Our "hike". We all managed in flip flops

SOOO random!

 Robert’s teachers are probably the nicest people I’ve ever met- they somehow managed to pay for all our lunches, tickets to the shrine, AND gas to get there and back. The only thing we managed to pay for was the parking fee (a mere 500\). We even tried blatantly shoving cash in their hands at the end of the day, but they both wouldn’t budge on the matter. Ah, the Japanese are just too dang polite!!

Giantest waterfall everrr

Tourists

One for Patty and Dave

Team Pokemon

Toshogu Shrine

Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil

Sleeping Cat

Group Shot!

Had to get the *couple* shot

  John was gracious enough to keep the “I told you so” until we were back in our apartment (out of the vomit danger zone).  While I think it was worth it, my stomach may disagree with me. I guess moral of the story is that when your more logical half speaks, maybe listen. Maybe don’t call him names and act like a 2 year old. Oh and go visit Nikko… but take some Dramamine.

Uncomfortably seats 5 grown adults