Well we got back from Nikko a few days ago. It's one of Japan's world treasures. I have visited 3 of them so far. Need to get more under my belt, especially since I got a real camera since last time! Anyways, I plan on writing a blog later on with more details, but till then here are a few pics!
These are the pieces of paper that you receive when you do the fortune telling. These are very similar to our little horoscope fortunes, except these can be very bad as they are good. IF you receive a bad fortune, you just tie it to the post, and the monks burn them in the evenings. This is supposed to burn away the bad fortune. Sometimes you will see these posts packed with fortunes. I don't know what you would do if the post was packed, and you couldn't have your bad fortune burned...maybe just keep the bad luck

This Yomemo gate. What a work of art. These thing was amazing with the numerous dragons and other art all over it. When being built, the people intentionally made one single fault on this piece. They did this because the God's can become jealous of perfection, So they made it imperfect. How cool is that! Well the imperfection is actually the 2nd pole from the right. The entire pole is upside down. The only way to see this is to look closely and you will see that the pattern is reversed.
This one is taken during one of the Ninja shows we saw. This was at Edo Wonderland. This place ROCKS. The entire park is set to be in the EDO period. Very unique. The shows were unbelievable. This one with the ninjas was my favorite. No picture or video could do it justice. The lighting was insane, fight scenes, acting, music all incredibly choreographed. I won't go on...Going to have to read the blog when it goes up

If interested, you can see more pictures here
