Nikko, Japan

Photo 1
The Haiden temple, hidden amongst the giant red cedar trees. Words or pictures can't describe how this place felt.


Photo 2
Entrance to Tosho-gu, which is a five storey pagola built in 1650. The pagola is said to have no foundations and swings on a pendulum in case of an earthquake.



Photo 3
6am in the morning and I'm 1/2 way up a pretty steep mountain. There wasn't much running going on here. Thats the view looking back down into Nikko. This climb took me 45min to get to the top and was at the start of my 2hr run. Yikes!


Photo 4
1.5hrs into my long run and I came across this bridge. It's called the Shin-kyo bridge. Built in the 17th century and legend says it was actually two snakes spanning across the river to help the buddist monk Shodo Shonin cross. Check out the colour of the water. It was icey cold.






Photo 5
This was part of my run course. It was steep. It felt soo good to be out in the bush again climbing mountains with no-one around in icey cold conditions.













Photo 6.
Katrina and I(our first trip away together in Japan) as we hopped off the train at Nikko. Looking forward to dumping our backpacks and doing some sightseeing.












Had a great couple of days up in the Japanese Alps. Nikko was cold and quite high up in altitude. I went for an early 2hr run and found some incredible trails along the way. I came across temples,a 400year old bridge and hot springs. This was probably the most scenic run I have ever done. I will definitely venture back here again soon.