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.