This is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
On our way out we stop for one final pic. The shrine complex continues in all directions and the photos here have only scratched the surface. It would probably be possible to spend an entire day at the Nikko shrines.
It was late afternoon by this time and we were starting to get hungry. We stopped at a gift shop/restaurant and had a bowl of noodles with the local delicacy, Yuba, made from bean-curd.
We walked (downhill) toward the train station to see the sacred bridge, built in 1636. We knew it was being refurbished but hoped we could see a little part of it. We didn't expect this!
This is what the sacred bridge is supposed to look like.
We took the Nikko train back to Utsunomiya and picked up a bento (box lunch) while we were waiting. This is teriyaki chicken, with some ground stuff (chicken?) over a bed of rice. We also had a pork bun in the upper left.
I love the Shinkansen!
Day 5: Tokyo. We spent another day in Tokyo. We started off in the Hibiya area of Tokyo to purchase our Disney tickets (Disney has a satellite ticket location there). In Tokyo, you purchase Disney tickets for specific days. Disneyland was sold out for Christmas Eve (both parks had been sold out for the prior Saturday). Luckily we had planned to go to Disneyland on 12/23 and DisneySea on 12/24. This photo is the Ginza district, which is the major upscale shopping area.
We walked along through Ginza on our way to the Kabuki-za (Kabuki theater). Kabuki plays are unusual in many ways. First, all of the actors are men (even playing female roles). Second, Kabuki plays are very long, sometimes 12 or more acts, and are rarely performed at a single time. Instead, an evening at Kabuki-za might be three acts from three different plays! Even this can take several hours so it is possible to purchase tickets for just a single act.