Jan 3 - ネットがあった！ + 東照宮

Finally, I'm back online. The hotel owner of Logettel St. Bois was kind enough to let me use their WiFi. Thank you so much どうもありがとう！

Today, I surprised myself at spending the whole day at Toshogu, plus a little bit of shopping along the way.

But first, breakfast.

I arrived at the bus station to find out that the next bus was an hour away. So, I just walked to Toshogu from the bus station. It's actually a very nice 15-20 minute walk. It's about 8:45am, plus it's Jan 3, so most of the shops were closed. There're not many people on the street either.

But there're already lots of people at Toshogu. I think most of the people were Japanese coming to pray for the New Year though. Here're some of the views.

They said one can spot wild monkeys, but I guessed with this many people, they're all scared away. And speaking of monkeys, there're the famous 3 wise monkeys, one covering his eyes, one covering his ears, and one covering his mouth. The meaning of those postures represent, in Japanese, 見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる. The English translation I saw today at Toshogu was "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." In Chinese, we have something similar: 非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言. But its meaning is different from the English translation as it has nothing to do with evil (the Chinese one also has a 4th component 非禮勿動). I wonder if the Japanese meaning is closer to the Chinese one, and thus the English translation is not accurate.

Here're 2 more pictures that I took.

Toshogu was so large that it's already 2:30pm when I was done.

I was about to do a quick lunch and then I found these food stands.

Here's what I had.

The first one, they called it Dango (だんご). The last one was a Hiroshima specialty, and it looked and tasted like Osakayaki (大阪焼き).

I did some shopping, and walked back to the hotel, where I found out I was the only customer left (Last night, there're 3 parties, including myself, with a total of 4 people). Jan 3 marks the last day of the New Year holiday in Japan, so everyone went home already.

Here's the dinner menu.

The spare rib is in the top right hand corner.

Yuba again! Unlike yesterday, there's no soy sauce with wasabi, so today's the original taste.

Iwana (岩魚) was again the catch of today. But it's cooked in shioyaki (塩焼き) style, which means grilled with salt.

Baby clam miso soup.

Desert was the same as yesterday, vanilla ice-cream with black pepper and red beans.

I am so happy to be back online. Again, thank you so much, the owner of Logettel St. Bois!

Finally, let me present you the picture of the day.

(Note: Before entering the jinjya for praying, the Japanese wash their hands and mouth with water that are available outside the jinjya. What you see here is the father helping her young daughter with the water.)

Goodnight everybody.