Nikko - The mountains

On Christmas Day, after a couple of Skype calls, Hunty and I caught a bus up into the Nikko mountains to find ourselves a "White Christmas." There wasn't a thick blanket of snow up there, but there was snow, which made me excited. When we got off the bus, it was lightly snowing, which made me even more excited, which made Hunty laugh.

We got off the bus fairly high up, walked along the creek to Ryuzu Falls, and then down to Lake Chuzenji. The walk probably took twice as long as it should have, because I kept stopping to take photos of anything and everything, I was just so excited about all the whiteness.

The mixture of running water, snow and ice was captivating.

Ryuzu Falls

Along the banks of Lake Chuzenji were some amazing collections of icicles.

Lake Chizenji

Lake Chizenji

After a a few dozen icicle photos, I had to promise a shivering Hunty that I wouldn't take any more photos of icicles. Then I saw the tree below, and fortunately he let me break my promise.

When we got to the bus stop near Lake Chizenji, we had just missed the bus. There was a waiting room with a heater, where we thawed out for a while and feeling painfully returned to our fingers. This wasn't to last however, missing the bus was an opportunity, so I dragged Hunty out again to see the Kegon falls. By the time we caught the next bus, I was exhausted enough to sleep most of the trip back.

Kegon Falls