Today it was decided that we were going to have a "rest". If you could call bush walking a rest. Last year when we went to see the Japanese Macaques at the Jigokudani Monkey Park, we didn't get on the bus til about 10.30am so it was a late day getting back. This time though we were all ready and got on the 8.52am bus after another different breakfast. I wore a light coat, and boy did I make the wrong decision. It got down to double minus figures in many areas of Shiga Kogen today, and jeans, ankle socks and a light coat don't make for good insulation.
The monkey park is down the bottom of the mountains, and with the bus drivers not going over 40km/h, the 15km from Hasuike (we had to change buses) seems like an eternity. We got to the Kanbayashi Onsen bus stop around 9.45. There were a few yobbo aussies on the bus (started getting annoyed because a japanese passenger didn't know what "monkey" meant, although he wasn't even the driver!), so when we all got off and they headed for the Roman Museum, we beat a path for the monkeys to avoid them. Some people shouldn't travel...
The walk from the Roman Museum is probably 2.0km. with about 1.6km of that being inside the forest. The first part up is slippery, and although there were stairs this year, just after the stairs finished was ice, and both Conrad and I nearly went base over. So the next 45mins or so was the walk, with us stopping to take pictures of various things. Compared to last year, there was a stack more snow, and the path wasn't just dirt this time, but had a lot of ice/snow on it. I took a couple of pictures for comparison, which I'll link to later on. We stopped just before the onsen to get a drink. I know I've probably mentioned this a few times before, but I love this country's love of vending machines. Even in the middle of nowhere, you can find vending machines (there was 3) and it had hot coffee cans and cold beer in the same machine. I would have had a beer, but it was freezing, and my hands were getting puffy from the cold (I was wearing knit gloves), so hot coffee it was.
The monkey onsen is near a human onsen. Onsen are public baths and the ones here are volcanic hot springs. There is a geyser as well, so even before you get close to the monkeys, it reeks of sulphur or rotten eggs. This leads to the expected fart jokes, but it also makes it easy to shift the blame :P
We spent about an hour around the monkeys. I had a couple wrestling right at my feet at one point, but Dean had to 1-up me, and had one crawl up his leg. Cute little thing too. They're wild macaques, but because they are used to humans, I had one close enough to pet (I didn't). In the meantime, because we had stopped moving much, my hands were freezing, so I went back to the information hut and warmed myself next to the kerosene heater.
When everyone was finally finished filming/photographing, we started the trek back. Unfortunately the snow had started to turn to ice, and I took a tumble, just before the others had come around the bend. They saw me get up but it was too late. I had mud on my jacket, jeans and gloves. So now I was moist with a sub-zero wind blowing. I beat a quick path towards the Roman Museum where we were looking forward to getting a wood-fired pizza at the restaurant attached to it. Unfortunately after walking for 4kms and being cold, the restaurant wasn't serving lunch. So an espresso and cake it was. I love Japan, but one thing that blows is that you can't get a decent cup of coffee. Because of being infested by the american military after nuking the place, all they know is the weak, watery american style coffee. Crystal Terrace (the restaurant) at least had an espresso machine available (compared to the usual drip filter rubbish) but even then, it wasn't strong. At least the chocolate cake was nice, without being overly sweet.
It was nearly 2pm when we jumped on the bus back up the mountain. By this time though we were starving, so we decided to stop off in Takamagahara for lunch. Some pizza and a beer later, and we were ready to go again... or would have been. We watched as we went from being able to see the top of Takamagahara, to barely being able to see the cafe across the road. The flags showed that the wind was blowing strongly as well, so we just chilled out and let our food rest before we walked back to Ichinose (it's only about 600m).
We decided after the late lunch that we wouldn't worry about going out for dinner this evening, so we stopped off at one of the Yamazaki's to grab some noodles, dessert or whatever else we felt like. Back at the hotel, there was washing to be done (I've only got 2 pairs of pants over here and I'm not wearing muddy ones!) so that is being done as I type this.
We're going to have a cruisey night, with Conrad, Dean and I all ready and rearing to go for an early start and long day on the slopes. Good thing too because more new snow is forecast.
Pics are here
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