It has been years since I visited Nikko National Park - about an hour from my host family's home in Tochigi. The Toshogu Shrine and other shrines in Nikko are considered national treasures, and represent a completely different type of architecture than the more restrained minimalist villas and teahouses built for the imperial family in Kyoto. Nikko is the realm of the Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and therefore the architecture is meant to represent power and wealth - much more like Chinese buildings - yet uniquely Japanese too.
We also took a long walk on a high plateau - where the kids pretended to be ninjas hiding under the boardwalk, and earlier that morning, I visiting the Tamozawa Imperial Retreat, where the Emperor and his family (including the current emperor - then a small child) spent much of World War II - to keep them safe from the fire bombing of Tokyo.
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