Monkeys!

Our in-Japan fun-things-to-do list is still pretty long, and so in our final a-bit-more-than-a-year left we're picking and choosing things off of it to do.  One thing that we recently chose was going to see the Snow Monkeys (Japanese Macaques) that hang out in the natural hot springs near Nagano.  This winter break was the perfect opportunity, as we've been running quite a bit for the last few months and wanted, as Lee says, an actual vacation.  We spent most of our week and a half break at home, and went to see the monkeys for a two-night trip.

Apparently the monkeys also want to see us

We decided that if we were going to go stay in a Japanese-style hotel it might as well be a nice one to celebrate Christmas, New Year's and the fact that we personally are now in the black.  Counting our (limited) assets and subtracting our (ever-shrinking) debt, we have a positive net worth!  We're quite pleased.

From the train, heading north

In celebration we bought some actual from-France Champagne and luxury-type snack items like real cheese and actual crackers and headed up to our hotel, where we'd booked a room with a private hot spring bath on the private balcony, instead having to use the communal baths in the rest of the hotel.  This was a very good perk; we used the bath a lot and enjoyed the chill of the open-air shower with the heat of the bath.  We've both done communal hot springs several times, but private is for-sure better.

This was walking around in the Naoetsu train station

We spent two nights in the ryokan, named Kokuya, which included breakfast and dinner each night as well.  They chauffeured us from the small but highly English-friendly train station to their very English-friendly hotel.  Our travel agent remarked that foreigners seem to be highly interested in seeing these snow monkeys; the Japanese do not tend to make pilgrimages to seek them out.  They do have a camera focused on the monkeys all the time here, if you'd like to watch.  There were obviously quite a few Japanese tourists as well, but it seems as though they are typically semi-local and taking a break in a very nice hot spring town, which this certainly was.  Shibu Onsen, the town we stayed in, had obviously been re-done in many ways and felt like a Japanese version of Main Street in Disney World.  It's very old-style Japanese, but glamorized, updated, and tourist-y.

And scrupulously clean

Once getting us settled in, after getting us the correctly sized yukata (cotton robes you can wear in the hotel or around town without getting funny looks) and giving us matcha (green tea) and okashi (sweets eaten with green tea), the guide outlined the general rules and procedures of the area and left us to our own devices.  We took a dip in the bath, enjoyed the kotatsu (table with a built-in heater and a blanket attached under the table surface), and wore our yukata down to dinner.  Sadly, we forgot to bring the camera down, but it was delicious!  Very Japanese, but with enough cognizance of the Western audience to make it really shine for us.  The waitstaff didn't always have good English skills, and I was able to use my small amount of Japanese to understand and be understood quite well.  One of the perks of the higher-end room was a private dining room for meals, which is probably a first for us.

Our private balcony bath, very hot, and with zero naked Japanese people in it

The next day, we had our Western-style breakfast (again forgetting the camera) and ventured out to see the monkeys.  It was a fairly nice walk up to the monkey park - the day was clear and brisk, the walk was uphill but only enough to warm the walkers, not enough to be strenuous, though there was a bit of dangerous ice here and there along the road.  We headed out early and met almost exclusively Australians along the way, who were probably on summer break.  Getting to the park was pretty straightforward, and we met two monkeys near the parking area that seemed to be toll monkeys.  One attempted to pick the pocket of a woman walking by, and also jumped at a man trying to get in the picture with it.

  Path leading to monkey park

 

English signs, for the tourists

We expected a fairly large nature park, with various springs that may or may not hold monkeys at any given time.  What we found was a fairly treacherous walkway down a stairway covered in ice to a geyser:

and past that, a short path to one small spring that held nearly all of the monkeys with all the tourists gathered around it:

They are not at all afraid of people, and if you check out the Flickr set, you'll see quite a few pictures of the monkeys looking particularly murderous.  I apparently used up all of my good luck for the weekend in getting this video clip.  The monkey jumped on cue, and those legs right near him are Lee's.  They were, on the whole, pretty cute.

Note the murder in the monkey's eyes

That evening we dined again in a private room.  Dinner was quite good, though there was a trout dish that I wouldn't have minded never having again.  We got pictures of everything this time, and over both nights had to concede that while this hotel definitely served traditional Japanese cuisine, they had, probably through experience, built menus that actually tasted good to foreigners, except that we have a history with the trout.

Note that it also pleaded with us not to eat it - see the expression?

After dinner, a world-famous shakuhachi (flute) player who, they told us, had performed at Carnegie Hall was staying at the ryokan and decided to give an impromptu concert with a local shamisen (3-string guitar) player.  It was a good performance, though I enjoyed the local artist more than the famous one.  Here's one video; there are two more in the Flickr set.  Being an impromtu concert, it was about 40 minutes long, which was about right as it was interesting and enjoyable to a certain extent but nothing I needed two hours of.

This hotel also had a hole in the floor showing off the hot spring that feed the baths.  We couldn't get a great shot of it, but here you go:

We had another Western-style breakfast the next morning, and I've learned that very strong plain yogurt with some sweet blueberry jam is absolutely delicious.  Western does not necessarily mean US, as you can see.  Note the salad is raw undressed cabbage, which is what the Japanese think goes into salad.  You can go to the salad bar at work and not find any lettuce.  Sorry for the blur:

Dinner rolls, fruit, a salad with a tomato, delicious yogurt and jam, scrambled eggs with mustard and ketchup, a bacon-like product, and a wilted spinach.  I traded my grapefruit for Lee's yogurt, and we were both happy.

Three trains and a bus later, we were back home.  Go see Flickr for the rest of the pictures!