Feb. 22. Nikko temple complex.

After parting company with the rest of Toshio's family, Anne, Alisa, and I went on to Nikko, and a rather posh hotel, Kanaya. By the time we had checked in and freshened up it was late afternoon, too late to do much in the way of sightseeing (and it was already getting pretty cold). We decided to rest a while, then set out for dinner. Anne had in mind a restaurant that served monastery food, but it was closed, so we made a reservation for another, supposedly similar restaurant in the temple complex, Meijiya-kan. After a rather roundabout walk to the restaurant (the schematic map we were shown was not at all accurate), we were seated in a very elegant Japanese dining room, a huge room with only six tables. The multi-course meals we were served was not at all what I would think of as monastic food: Very elegant both in its preparation and in its service. Dinner lasted two hours (Alisa was remarkably patient for a young child.) Several dishes were built around skimmed tofu - and I reluctantly have to admit that some of them were very tasty: a little seasoning works miracles. As at the hot springs restaurant, several dishes were built around different mountain vegetables, none of which I had ever seen before: most of the dishes served were quite new to me, but they were all delicious except for one, some kind of bud that was breaded and fried, that was extremely bitter. I made the mistake of eating most of it; it took several bites of the blandest dish on my plate to clear away the bitterness. Consistent with traditional monastic practice, the waitresses spoke very little, only when necessary. Alisa got pretty squirrelly after a while, but she was mostly pretty tolerant. Fortunately, LaJean sent a stuffed piglet as a present. Piglet subsequently made clear its orphan status, and need for Mothering, which Alisa was delighted to provide. Alisa and the Piglet took very good care of each other through a long ordeal while Anne and Dave talked and ate, ate and talked.
The temple complex is huge, covering the entire top of a sacred mountain (hill, really - there are much higher snow-covered mountains on two sides of the city). We saw about half of it, and I took far too many photographs - the best of them are on the photo album page. The mountain is the site of a temple built around 700AD by one of the monks who brought Buddhism from China; that temple is now gone, but his influence continues. The temples we saw were built by and for the first few shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty in the early 1700s. The most ornate one was built for for Tokugawa Ieayasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns. Anne tells me they are largely in a Chinese style, with some influences of Japanese architecutral forms; they combine religious symbols from Buddhism and Shinto, with many elements from Hinduism woven in; gold leaf is everywhere. Anne thinks there are also some faint echoes from European architecture as well, and the parallels with the French baroque are unmistakeable. For example, the Buddha is often depicted with multiple arms, figures based on elephants, etc. The effect is rather overwhelming (and very hard to photograph). Between temple visits, we also toured a temple garden, which includes a lovely little teahouse overlooking a small lake. The 3-4 inch layer of snow all over added a lot to the beauty of the place, and created an air of serenity. We thought Monday morning might not be too jammed with people but we were wrong - several very large tour groups of older people, and several of high schoolers.
The temples themselves are really over the top with ornate detail, brilliant paint, gold leaf everywhere. Most of the rooflines are turned up at the corners, Chinese style. Almost at the top of the hill is a Shinto Temple, behind it and a little higher is a Buddhist shrine, signifying the higher spirituality associated with Buddhism. Just in front of the shrine, facing the Shinto shrine is a group of three statues. On the right is a stork (youth), standing on a turtle (old age), signifying long life. In the middle shishi lion-dog (wisdom, protection against evil spirits), and on the left an urn; Anne thinks intended to hold lotus blossoms, symbol of englightenment associated with the Buddha.
It would be nice to come back with more time and visit the other temples and shrines in the area, but Alisa appeared to be near the end of her patience, and I suspected if I attempted to see anything more I would lose all of it into a big mush. So we had lunch in a nice little noodle shop, then shifted gears and took a walk down by the river to a park area filled with Ojiso-san,s (the stone statues depicted in the photo album), gods of travel, who protect travelers. Each has been kindly provided with a red cap and cape for protection against the winter weather. We were running a bit late, so I carried Alisa on my shoulders there and back. We took a taxi back into town, and had time for tea and cheesecake before boarding the train for Tokyo.