Nonstop to Tokyo [.co.uk]

The jigoku (or 'hells') are natural volcanic hot springs that come in a variety of colours, including, um .... red. Beppu is a town famous for its hot springs in Japan, and so obligingly we took the hot springs tour!

The jigoku hot springs are normally too hot to bathe in, but luckily the red one also came in a cooler version that was just right for a nice soak of the feet on a hot day. The hat is stop you overheating (hot feet + hot sun = fainting etc); parasols were also available. Note the 'ironic' incorporation of the Japanese fondness for giving the peace sign. (And yes, I know, I look like a twat. So sue me.)

Just outside of Tokyo is an historic town (or village?) called Nikko, which has a mass of temples and shrines a half hour's walk uphill from the station. This is the middle of one the larger complexes; directly behind the camera is the famous 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' shrine with the 3 monkeys.

This a shot of one of the more colourful temple buildings .... the colours have been washed slightly by the scanning process, but you can still make out the gold and the green and the blue quite well. Sorry about the rock in the bottom left-hand corner by the way, but this was the only angle that was available for taking a picture of the whole length of the building.

This is a detail from the roof of the entranceway that you can just see in the centre background of the picture before last. If you look closely (specifically bottom right, and the ledge going from left-bottom to top-middle), there are lots of little people in various unique scenes, I'm not entirely sure who or what they are though I'm afraid.

I like this because it demonstrates just how organised the Japanese are when it comes to picture-taking; compare this with the picture third above this one, and you can see how it looked before the invasion of school-children (and teachers! Look for the suits), with benches placed so that you can get the perfect group picture with all the main elements in.

This little building at the entrance to a temple complex is purely for cleansing oneself. You can just make out the ladels resting on the stone water-container in the centre, which are used to wash your hands and face before entering the temple. These buildings aren't normally this swish mind you; Nikko is a bit of an exceptional place for temples and the like, as a lot of money has been spent on it in the past by emporers, shoguns, and other important people.

I don't know how impressive this picture will look to anyone else, but for me and Emma it reminds us of a very specific memory we took away from Japan, that of the many many stone lanterns that line the paths to and through the temple complexes, and light the way in the dark and during festivals. Sometimes they are laid out more for decoration than function, as in this example. The stone lanterns add a certain presence to the grounds, I guess partly because the moss growing on them gives them a sense of age and history, and also because they are quite imposing (they're normally about 5/6 feet tall I'd say from memory).

This fine looking chap was one of a series of guardians to entrances of some of the temple grounds. I've also got pictures of a red one and a green one, each in slightly different poses, but I think the blue one is my favourite. I'm afraid I can't remember his name or exact purpose any more (other than that he's a good guy and is there for protection), but if you picture him on one side of an entrance building, with a similar statue on the other side ..... it's very imposing, honestly.

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