Nikko!

If you ever go to Nikko, be sure to wake up as early as possible to get to the tourism sites. We were lucky we just happened to get up at sunrise.

See this picture? If we had gotten there even an hour later it would have a hundred tourists in the background. People come from all over! We heard people from south america, all over japan, and all over the west.

The Futarasan shrine complex is an enormous complex of buildings. Each one is ginormous and ornately decorated. Many of them had gold plating (fake gold plating, of course)

Everything was extra colorful and majestic. It was really fun to walk around!

One of the golden ones

bad lighting but everything behind me is white and gold!

White and gold dragon from the portion where photos werent allowed. Oops ;)

Was Nikko worth the drive out? Absolutely! It had so many interesting shrines and temples and especially the main one we visited everything was so supersized we felt like ants! It's very impressive and a great place to take photos and enjoy the surroundings.

Zao fox village!

I don't know where we first heard about the fox village in Zao, but I want to say it was reddit. Needless to say we go to anywhere we hear is full of animals we can't normally be around. We travel a lot and have never heard of a place where you can interact with foxes in such close proximity

So when you first walk in you're like, what's going on. Honestly nothing inside is much worth the time. They should get rid of the smaller enclosures with the rare fox breeds that "need to be isolated" I guess they are better there than dead....but it's not worth it in my opinion to keep them there for the sake of advertising that they have loads of fox breeds. We did stop and have a look at all the different foxes though. Inside is also where you can hold a fox for 400 yen.

This is where the magic starts happening. Down this path leads to the start of the circuit track around the large free roaming outside area. Fox paradise! Yes it was cold (5 degrees C). Yes I had a coat, and two pairs of nylons so it wasn't too bad to get the photos. I just hate photos of me in five coats. I look like a homeless person and it's not flattering.

Keeping a respectful distance towards my loved ones

This fox was out for treats. He knew someone somewhere had to have them, lol. The feeding area is separate and very strictly observed. Chaos can break out very easily, you don't want to be swarmed by a hoard of hungry foxes!