As our journey has continued to half way, it seems that our excitement of travelling independently never appeared to drop a bit. Ha! Wait till you learn about what really happened... I can proudly say that our trip to Nikko was "EPIC" Hahaha

Anyway, everything seemed to work fine, thanks to a very helpful staff at K's House that guided us the best route to Nikko. Once we arrived at Ueno Station, I was informed by the JR officer that the train that we would take was not a direct one, we needed to get off at Utsunomiya Station and then transfered to the JR local train to Nikko Station. Well that sounds pretty easy huh? Hahaa.

However, the truth is I underestimated this whole plan and screwed up once again! LOL! Okay, I was fully aware that I needed to transfer the train but somehow I lost track of time when I dozed off, waking up again when Ching naively asked me about our arrival time at Utsunomiya. Yeahhh of course I knew right at the moment that it's too late since the train had idly motioned away from the Utsunomiya platform! Oohhh BIG TIME!

Having no other choice, we continued our Shinkansen ride to the next stop which unfortunately took us another good 40 min (almost 200 km away VERY NICE!) So from there, it shouldn't be that hard just to take a train back the same way right? Yeahhh hahaha that was my initial plan! but apparently since I could hardly contain my stupidity, I missed another train back!! and guess what?? It's because I was standing on the wrong side of the damn platform!! helplessly watching the train left the station with my ached heart and pride shattered to pieces Hahaha "EPIC FAIL"

Haha Okay since our first day plan at Nikko was officially ruined, we decided to to just relax a bit! Ching spent the rest of the day buried under her unfinished piles of work, while I went out to meet with Jordan, a good friend I met on Mt. Fuji last year :) We spent our evening walking to "Kanmangafuchi Abyss" where we were greeted by an endless row of Jizo statues along the trail. The place was a bit spooky though from my humble opinion...or perhaps it's just that we were there at the wrong time! late evening to be specific! LOL

Anyway, my day was not entirely wasted in vain, since I got to take a picture with this symbolic sacred bridge of Nikko, Shinkyo Bridge! and this shot was pretty good indeed, all credit goes to Jordan!!