Stone Room, and Worship Hall.
Another roomful of masterpieces is the Main Shrine which is heavily decorated with carvings and renditions in copper plates. The crest of three hollyhock leaves of the Tokugawa Family is carved on columns, pillars, panels, treasures, etc. Every square inch belonged to an artistic historic masterpiece of either symmetrical patterns, or trees, landscapes, birds, animals, real or mythical.
Some offerings were already in place as a priest recounted the Shrine's history in the Stone Room. There were innumerable things to behold: 27 dragons on the ceiling, mythical phoenix birds, poems on the four seasons, and on different kinds of relationships artfully accomplished by 36 artisans. Then the priest performed a ceremony, the significance of which escaped me, pardon my ignorance. However the reverence and solemnity was palpable. We held our breath as a priest beat a gong, while another wove a pattern only he could see, with silent feet on the matted floor. He waved a twig with a white pom-pom at the end and his ceremony became a worshipful interpretation of his bass voice.
After dousing in Buddhist ritual, I was ready for the second treat, the Worship Hall. Its compartmentalized ceilings served as niches for the 100 different phases of various dragons. The dragons were forever captured by the efforts of the Master Artist Honchido. Briefly, hand signals instructed me to stand and listen. For what I hadn't the slightest notion. A priest in a white frock picked up a pair of wooden blocks and banged them together unceremoniously. Then incredibly, I heard a dragon roar above me and amazingly, the roar travelled across the ceiling in echoes!
Four centuries ago their architects could accomplish this!?
I made my way to the open courtyard and again felt that I was standing on the threshold of an indescribable collection of great historical, cultural and national treasures of Japan. Nikko Shrine has 55 main structures spread throughout an area of 80,000 sq. m.

There were other places I visited in Nikko National Park. I clearly remember an eerie lake from which disembodied voices of schoolchildren could be heard through the thick fog,; the mighty waters which could be heard at a distance as it rushes down 97 meters of Kegyon Falls; an endless staircase to the heavens I never reached; the Senjogahara alpines with over a hundred kinds of wild birds; the Kisugedaira Hills brilliantly carpetted with wildflowers; the serenity of Yunoko and Chuzenji lakes; the majesty of Nantai and Oku-Nikko mountains; and finally the filling and tasty steaming hot octopus and shrimps.
To explore Nikko would take a year. To know its delights would take years of living there. I did the best I could do - I opened my senses and stuffed as much of Nikko's splendor into my memory bag.