Musings

We’re not massive snow activity persons. Nonetheless, when wintering in the country, we’d necessarily need to at least do some of it – if nothing else, just to tick off the item in the ‘must-do’ list! Unfortunately, the daughter had

This wasn’t in our planned itinerary, but we saw an information board at our visit to Matsumoto Castle yesterday that there is a nightly winter illumination night show, and it starts from 6PM. The show repeats every 15 minutes and

Day 14 today was originally planned for our snowshoe hike trip. But the guide we engaged alerted a few days ago that snowfall in the area was lower than expected this week, so the missus asked if he could swap

While Central Nikko itself was a pretty sedate small town, we were loathed to check out of Stay Nikko Guesthouse. Despite it not having the modern conveniences of numerous restaurants and cafes right at our door-step i.e. like at Toggle

We stayed two nights at the Stay Nikko Guesthouse, a small establishment owned by a lovely couple who look like they’re in their early 40s. I reckon most visitors to Central Nikko during winter won’t stay overnight unless they are

The performances at Nikko Edo Wonderland are only offered in Japanese. Judging from the audience’s reactions, they were probably very entertaining. Of the four we saw, we all agreed the Ninja Theater (Ninja Action Show) was the best: it simply

One of the main reasons why we opted for two nights in Nikko was to visit Nikko Edomura, or Nikko Edo Wonderland – a theme park and living museum that showcases life and culture during the Edo period. The park

We left the Tamozawa Imperial Villa at close to 2PM and slowly made our way to the Toshogu Shrine area. Our host at Stay Nikko Guesthouse had earlier on advised that we should take the bus to get to the

Our first place of visitation in Nikko today was the Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa. According to the venue’s guide, the Tamozawa Imperial Villa was built around the former Edo residence of the Kishu Tokugawa clan, and brought from Edo to

Day 11 of our 18 day trip, and we made the journey to Nikko this morning. The trip itself from our Tokyo hotel involves three train rides, and was planned like this: Basically: Suidobashi Station to Akihabara Station, change platform,

We stayed at the Toggle Hotel Suidobashi over the 8D7N we spent in Tokyo this trip. It was tough trying to find a property that could hold the four of us: either a family room, or a property that guaranteed