Travels with Dan

Snow Monkeys of Jigokudani

Seeing the snow monkeys in Japan has been one of the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time. More than skiing. More than eating sushi. More than anything else Japanese. Seeing snow monkeys, however, is not a down-the-road thing and takes about three hours to get to from Tokyo. Bec and Glen opted out of going to see them so on Tuesday I went by myself.

Glen and I had breakfast together earlier than usual and then I set off to Shinjuku Station to catch the train to Ueno Station. I was loaded up with my backpack full of cameras and warm weather gear. I wore my ski pants and jacket because it was meant to be snowing in Yudanaka, near where the monkeys are.

At Ueno I purchased a ticket to Nagano and was thrilled to discover I was catching a shinkansen, otherwise known as a bullet train. Zipping across the middle of Japan seemed like a pretty cool thing to do and the journey only took an hour, which was quicker than I expected.

Once I arrived at Nagano, I was heading for the next train but saw there was a Snow Monkey pass being advertised which included travel and entry to the Snow Monkey park. The express bus took less time than a train and a bus so I bought in and boarded the train with a bunch of other foreigners (including one really annoying French guy who was talking way too loud – and in English – so the whole bus could hear him trying to impress the girl he’d latched himself onto).

The bus took us to Kanbayashi Onsen, the town where the trail to the Snow Monkey park begins. Panic set in a bit when I read on the map that the only public toilet was at the start of the trail but I was relieved – in every sense of the word – to discover there is in fact a toilet at the little information booth about fifty metres from the monkeys.

Snow monkeys in the park

The walk up to the monkeys took about 30 minutes and goes through a beautiful snow-covered forest. It was a stunning landscape, especially when the onsen comes into view as it’s perched above the rocky stream and the valley.

I arrived at the snow monkeys just before they were fed by the staff. The monkeys were coming across the hill, heading for the spots where the staff threw the food. I wandered down to the edge of the stream and froze as one monkey came straight towards me up the path. He couldn’t have been less interested in me and instead simply kept walking around me as he went on his way. (I should probably say she as that’s more likely.)

With the arrival of the food, the monkeys busied themselves picking the seeds out of the snow. There was something about seeing so many monkeys so close up that made me really happy and glad that I’d made the journey. I took a lot of photos and some video and watched them as they moved around the tourists. Of course, we were all there waiting for the monkeys to go in the hot springs but they were too busy foraging. More than likely they’d end up in the spring later in the day, after all their activity.

The staff did throw some seeds into the water and one monkey gave everyone what they were waiting. He got into the water up to his neck and picked up the seeds. A couple of others sat around the edge of the pool doing the same but really he had the whole place to himself. I think I was there about an hour. If I’d stayed longer, perhaps I would have seen more in the water but I was pretty happy with what I’d seen.

The return to Tokyo

I headed down the hill and waited for the bus to take me to Yudanaka. My back was well and truly screwed by that point, and I was becoming increasingly worried that skiing would be completely out of the question on Thursday. I contemplated staying an hour in Yudanaka to try out the hot springs but the train arrived not long after me and so I thought I’d give it a miss and just head back to Nagano.

At Nagano, I upgraded my unreserved shinkansen ticket to a reserved one (no way was I going to stand for an hour), then bought some food as I’d only had a couple of bananas all day. The train arrived at 15:59, I got on, ate my sushi and hot cross buns and took it easy until getting into Tokyo. Changed trains at Omiya and then got into Shinjuku at about 5:40pm.

Glen was at the hotel, having had an interesting day walking around Tokyo, checking out museums and gardens and without wifi. Bec was still out exploring. I had a bath as my back had pretty much seized up and I was really worried about skiing. Afterwards, I attempted to find a restaurant on TripAdvisor so we didn’t have a fruitless and frustrating couple of hours searching for something to eat. I did find a couple of options but when we met Bec in the lobby she had the great suggestion of checking out the little alleyway near the station so we went there and walked up and down the two alleys there.

We eventually settled on a tiny place (they’re all tiny) that was open to the alley and seated eight people at a time. It served soba noodles (and udon noodles) with soup and a veggie tempura. It cost about ¥350 ($4 or so) and was our authentic Japanese local experience, whereby we waited until a seat became available, sat, ordered, ate and left. No chatting. No socialising. The food was delicious.

We then went looking for tonkatsu (crumbed chicken), finding one of the places I suggested, which didn’t have any chicken so we didn’t stay, and then tried to find another but failed. We looked at a department store restaurant level which was too expensive and then went back to Lumine Est to have dessert. It was fine. I was definitely over the stress of finding something to eat; wish I could just eat.

Back to the hotel and packed in preparation for our departure the next day to Niseko and skiing!