Tired of the daily routine of slogging to a gray building full of even grayer coworkers?
Then buy your train ticket, pack your day bag and head off to the historic city of Nikko, a 1 hour 40 minute train ride north of Tokyo in Tochigi Prefecture, where one day soon you can take to the streets, not with the customary legion of trippers, but with throngs of far more colorful revelers dressed as samurai, archers and Shinto priests.
The "1,000 Samurai Parade," held every May 18 and Oct. 17, commemorates the 1617 enshrinement at Nikko of the remains of Ieyasu Tokugawa, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate.