Big Red @ Nikko

Saturday morning (27/10), Ummi planned to meet her friend, Uncle Jalil at Maita station at 6am. Ummi woke up around 5 & is already ready by 5.30. We then met the rest of the group (6 of us - Uncle Jalil, Aunty Chui Yee, Uncle Zul, Uncle Vined & Uncle Tan) at Yokohama station. From Yokohama, we took the JR Tokkaido to Tokyo which took us around 30mins. We then took the Shinkanzen (bullet train) to Yamabiko at 7.36am and stop at Utsunomiya. We missed the 8.23am JR Nikko line & had to wait for the next train at 9.12. While waiting, we had coffee at Becks Coffee Shop (it's everywhere in Japan). It's refreshing to have hot coffee in cold weather. (It's colder here than Yokohama. Ummi is still getting use to it. The last time Ummi went through winter was when she went to school at Purdue - 7 yrs ago).

In front up Utsunomiya eki.

We reached Nikko station around 10am. The plan was to go to the observation deck first then to the big red bridge by bus. We have to take the cable car at Akechidaira stop to the observation deck. The scenery was incredibly beautiful even though it was a little foggy.

Scenery from the observation deck.

 
We then waited for the bus to go to the Kegon Waterfall. The traffic was so bad, so we decided to walk to the waterfall. The scenery was equally incredible. Can't describe how beautiful it is.

Nikko town

Kegon waterfall

 We the went to the lakeside for more photography session, lunch & prayer. Luckily ummi brought some food for lunch. Around 330pm, we started queing for bus to the red bridge. However, the line was too long & traffic was too bad, we had to wait for bus for almost 2 hrs (it was really cold until we had to take turn to go into the waiting area to warm ourselves). It was already dark then. Therefore we didn't stop at the red bridge since nothing can be seen. It was a 45mins journey down the hill, 45 mins train journey from Nikko to Utsunomiya & 45 mins on shinkanzen to Tokyo. Everyone was exhausted, so we decided to go directly to Yokohama & agreed to meet again on sunday at Yokohama station 7.20am for our next trip to Mount Fuji.