== Bernie's brain dump as of April 2009 ==
+=== April 28th ===
+
+The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko|first batch of photos from Nikko]] are now online.
+
=== April 27th ===
==== Afternoon: travel to Nikko ====
and busses connect them directly, so we had to take an expensive -- yet very fast -- Shinkansen
detour all the way down to Saitama and then up again.
-Once at the station, we immediately realized that our was a good investment, after all.
+Once at the station, we immediately realized it was a good deal, after all.
This mountain town overflows with temples, world heritage sites and statues of Buddah
spread in an extremely beautiful natural environment with many great falls, ancient woods
and hot springs where even wild monkeys take an onsen.
Tomorrow, of course after our morning yoga and vegan breakfast, we're going on a day long
guided hiking tour with the monks, which sounds really cool.
+**UPDATE**: ouch!
+
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/00026.jpg|Ouch!|maxwidth=640}}
==== Morning: Zenko-ji ====
-In the morning, we tried again to visit the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenk%C5%8D-ji]].
+In the morning, we tried again to visit the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenk%C5%8D-ji|Zenko-ji]].
Even on a Monday, the queue was not much shorter. A nice volunteer guide advised us that
the pilgrims where queuing just to touch a wooden pole with an inscription on it that was
right in front of the temple, and we could skip aside if we weren't interested. So we did.