Back in the spring of 1989, Lawrence was working in Hong Kong on a television series for Yorkshire TV called ‘Yellowthread Street’. At the end of his work time, I joined him for a holiday and we booked a 3-week tour of China for early June 1987. Well, events in China put a stop to that as the borders were closed and tourists were not welcome. So instead, we took a 2-week tour of Japan, and fell in love with the place. We visited the fabulous temples and shrines of Nikko and this was one of the places we visited that I’d always wanted to go back too to explore at my own pace. So rather than come straight back to Malaysia from Hokkaido, we decided to have a trip to Nikko.
On our first day, we took the train from Tobu-Asakusa station in Tokyo towards Kinugawa-onsen Station (Nikko). We stopped to explore Tobu World Square and then got a bus to Edo Wonderland. The next day we took the local train to Tobu-nikko station and the bus to the temple area. We walked around the temples and shrines of Nikko before finally getting the train back to Tokyo.
We stayed at the Hananoyada Matsuya resort in Kinugawa-onsen and had a true ryokan experience. The outdoor onsen was second only to that at Lake Toya, and it was lovely to relax there before dinner. We ate in a private room, and had such a selection of food! The photo below is our breakfast, which comprised of about 20 different dishes.
