Nikko

I went to Nikko this weekend with a couple friends. (Thanks to Ruth we got an excellent deal on travel and hotel.) The really famous thing about Nikko is the shrines and temple on the edge of town. It's a large grouping of buildings and even on a very rainy day there were plenty of people there.

On one of the buildings are carved various scenes including monkeys engaged in different activities. It is one section of this that contains "See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil". If you watch the slideshow or go to the album on Picasa (double click on the slideshow picture) you can easily see that the little carvings or other kinds of replicas we have seen most of our lives look very little like the real thing. What a shame, because in the original the characters have a liveliness and charm missing from the drab carvings I've seen most commonly.

In town I did see a wood carving in the window of an antiques store that was quite different, showing, again three monkeys - realistically carved - a mother covering the eye of one young one, while he in return had his hand on mother's mouth, a second youngster had one of his hands on his own ear. It was darling, well done, and incredibly expensive.

The other buildings in the complex have delicate, intricate carvings, paintings and gildings. Flowers, birds, angry looking elephants carved and painted on many surfaces. Inside the buildings are buddhas and sleeping cats and weeping dragons, priests making offerings. There are repairs and refinishing works going on all around. I'm sure the environment under the dark ancient forest is hard on the wood and metal, not to mention the steady stream of visitors.