02-25-2025 Walks

Had another decent night's sleep, perhaps not as good as the previous night but still good enough to function. We ate a light breakfast, then walked over to the subway stop for the Ginza line to take it to Asakusa. All went well, then we transferred to a fancy-looking private train, Spacia X, to take us up to Nikko. I didn't pay much attention to the sights on the way up, worked on cleaning up WhatsApp pics. The trip was a littler longer than I expected but not too bad. We arrived on time and then walked the short distance to the stop for the World Heritage bus to take us up to the shrine area. I was feeling a little down, not in the mood for more shrines and temples. We walked up to the Hondo Main Hall, Ann ended up buying tickets to go in, and I thought it was for a short visit, after which we would either walk or take the bus to the next stop. Nope. She ended up going through all the themes and shrines, while I walked around a bit and sat a lot. It was mildly interesting people watching but too long to wait eventually. After she was done, we took the bus back to the initial stop and then walked up to a pancake shop. I thought it would be more substantial for lunch but was mistaken. We walked back to the stop and took the bus back up the hill, intending to get close to the Kanman-ga-fuchi Abyss trail. Ann was navigating, and it took us longer than expected to get to the trailhead, which was snowy and icy. Thankfully, we didn't have to navigate through the snow much before finding a safer path. There were a lot of stone sculptures of a Buddhist deity, Jizu, all decorated with red caps and shirt fronts. It was kinda cool. We walked to the end of that trail, then took a service road back to the start, followed by neighborhood streets back to a place where we could pick up the bus back into the city center. Waited about 40 minutes for our train to arrive. The ride back was uneventful, I paid more attention to the scenery this time. It was interesting in seeing the difference between the countryside, the suburbs, and the city. After we got to the station, we had a problem. We must have accidentally used our Suica cards when we were trying to get through the gate to the Spacia X train, and it rendered the cards invalid. We tried to get the problem fixed but to no avail, since there wasn't a JR office at this station. We bought single fares for the ride back to the Airbnb. Ann was moving really slowly and not thinking so clearly, but we made it back eventually. We had planned on a late return, so there was no need to stop at the store. I made pasta for dinner, was mediocre but serviceable for us. Then it was to a blessed sleep.