More of a scrum this morning at the Marmolada, a throng of Chinese tourists who even had vouchers! But I can learn from the budget travellers, the convenience store in the hotel was very busy last evening with them buying quick meals and getting them microwaved there and then. I'm compensating by stoking up with a for course breakfast.
A colder day, and I slept very badly but the guide for our Nikko tour called did her diffident best to keep us amused. She launched into an explanation of the overhead controls for air conditioning only for the driver to say they didn't do anything, it was underfloor warm air heating he controlled. She passed out leaflets and invited us to memorise where we were going. Bravely she tried to teach an uncooperative bus of snoozing passengers a Japanese song "Momijo". I would be no great shakes as a tour guide I'm sure. She did teach me some things, the much prized cherry blossom bloomed in Tokyo unusually early thanks to an unexpected warm period. Sake the drink and the Japanese for salmon are homophones.
Our first stop was the Toshugu shrine which is a major temple complex based on the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was a very popular spot on this Sunday, and our coach crawled into the site. The site mixes tourism, so there were Japanese there I'm sure who saw it as an outing primarily, but also religion so they queued to clap hands to notify the deity and throw money over the lintel (Ieyasu is worshipped as a Shinto deity), and business (good luck charms cost money). There are a number of very photogenic buildings there, a 5 storey hanging pagoda, carvings of monkeys and sleeping cats.
If you took your shoes off you could see a shrine with a hundred dragons in the roof, and another ceiling with a crying dragon. The demonstrator hit wooden blocks together in one place, no echo - then hit them in the right place and we had an echo. He then I think went into a sales pitch for the shrine incense products. A guess. Another temple priest with gusto rang a giant drum using a suspended wooden bar. May have been to mark the hours.
We had udon noodles for lunch, with the components of the meal in different pots. I was bemused by what we had to do with that. The duck plus noodles in the heated pot one ate, the shrimp and veg one could dip in the sauce and eat, there was rice too. I enjoyed the experience!
We went to the Tamozawa Imperial Villa, an old residence of the Emperor, and got an impression of how it was in a traditional Japanese house with sliding paper panels. We got cold feet as it was another remove shoes job, and the floor was definitely without underfloor heating. A lovely garden, and there was an intriguing chain of small cups hanging from the eaves down which raindrops apparently cascade.
We saw Kegon waterfall which wasn't a certain sighting because of the general fogginess. Amiko encouraged us by saying we could hear the waterfall even if we couldn't see it. And there would always be the souvenir shop.
Journey back was slow due to a 20km tailback on the Expressway to Tokyo due to an accident. We stopped at a service station and I was relieved to find a clean free toilet in all that crush. Wouldn't in the UK in a similar situation.