These cooler days with the promise of winter in the air made me feel nostalgic, so a (digitally) flipped through some old photos taken during Christmas 2004 (with our dear, departed Casio). That year, Brian and I drove to Nagano to visit the Jigokudani monkey park and to spend a couple of nights (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) at a nearby traditional ryokan. Jigokudani is in the mountains of Nagano prefecture, not too far from Nagano city. There are no gates or cages (thankfully), and the monkeys just hang out wherever they feel like it – though within the park, there is an onsen bath just for the monkeys, and they love to take a hot bath in winter as much as we do!
Korakukan, the ryokan, is a great, rambling structure that sits just outside the park boundaries. Far away from any city “conveniences” (such as traffic and vending machines), and with well-prepared Japanese food, beer sold in the lobby, and natural hot spring baths that smell faintly of sulphur, it was a great choice of accommodation. But perhaps the best part was that monkeys were everywhere, not just confined to the borderless “park”, but playing on the roof and sharing the outdoor people bath at the ryokan (have you ever bathed with a monkey?).
Originally, the photos weren’t great – they were fogged from the onsen’s steam– but more experience with photo editing software has helped us improve the quality
somewhat:
This is one of my favourite experiences in Japan, and looking at the photos makes me long for a snowfall and monkeys on my roof...
Here are some monkeys enjoying the hot springs:
2 comments:
I still have copies of the orginals :D I have proof of the changes.
I was just thinking about your monkey pictures today ... I am reading "Son of a Witch," which is a sequel to the Wizard of Oz. The wicked witch's snow monkey was mentioned a couple of times on the last few pages!
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