Monkey Business

I am gonna be a little out of order on the photos from Japan. Got some of the shorter piles done first and wanted to post them since I have been delinquent recently.

My friend Rebecca and I took a trip to Kyoto, Matsumoto and Nagano/Yamanouchi for 5 days at the end of November. We hit perfect fall color in Kyoto, but that is the biggest pile of photos, so you will have to wait on those pictures a little longer. We ended the trip with an awesome stop in the Yamanouchi area of Nagano where we stayed in a traditional Ryokan (japanese hotel) in Shibu Onsen and then went up the mountain to see the famous snow monkeys at the Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park.

Awesome up close experience with japanese snow monkeys!

We came into the train station at nearby Yudanaka mid-morning and dropped our bags off at our Ryokan hotel. We then caught a taxi up to Jigokudani. A short 15 min hike up a path through the woods led to the monkey park. I guess I wouldn’t describe this as a park….there are no fences keeping the monkeys penned in. Its a small area where a group of about 200 Japanese Macaque monkeys live year round. They are fed daily and have their own onsen (hot tub), so who would want to leave?

Food and a hot tub... not sure I would ever leave either.

I’d seen photos from this place in the past and this was definitely on the bucket list. In a word, this place was incredible. Anywhere you can go where wild animals act as if you don’t exists is pretty priceless, and those spots are very few. And as usual, baby animals are just about the cutest thing on the planet and baby monkeys are no exception. I so wanted to nip one of the small little fur balls in my backpack and take one home.

Mommy, can I please have one of these for Christmas?!

You could walk right up to these monkeys and they pretty much ignored you. There was no touching or feeding the animals, but they were certainly close enough that you could if you wanted to risk breaking the rules. We were there about 2 hours and didn’t want to leave. I liked this place so much that when a co-worker asked about heading up there, I quickly volunteered to go with him so I could see the monkeys again. So, tomorrow, I am headed back to the snow monkey park. The snow has set in so it should be a slightly different view than the first trip. Just can’t wait to get there.