Japan Day 3 ~ Nagano - Jigokudani, Snow Monkeys (back track)

I originally started writing this post before the Kalafina "far on the water" and after the Kalafina "8th Anniversary" lives.  But I was travelling quite a bit and it was cold so I ended up sleeping more than writing. :P  I come from a tropical country, so although cold weather is nice, I'm not used to it being so cold all the time. :P

So now that I am at the airport and have some time, I thought I'll just try and finish this post in Narita and then maybe try and get to an Ieiri Leo live at Zepp DiverCity post after this when I return to Singapore. :)

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After two very awesome Kalafina lives on Day 1 and 2 of my trip to Japan, it was time to do some sightseeing. I had about a week before the Kalafina "far on the water" SP Final lives at the end of January so I had options.  One of my friends, SY who loves travelling to Japan like me decided to join me for the week and so we headed off to Yudanaka, Nagano.

Both SY and I are from Singapore and Singapore gets no snow.  It's been years since I left the US, hence, years since I've seen snow. SY loves the snow so she planned a trip where we would hopefully see quite a bit of snow.

I was happy to go along with her plans because it meant going to places that I have not been to in Japan. :)

The first stop for use was a Yudanaka in Nagano.  But first I had to go to Tokyo Station to meet SY who had just flown into Japan.  We picked up an ekiben, activated our Japan Rail Pass and off we went. :)

     

The train we took from Nagano to Yudanaka was quite cool! :)



We were only in Yudanaka for a day.  So we were hoping that the weather would be good for going to the Snow Monkeys Park.  Due to some unforeseen circumstances, our decision to go to Nagano to see the Snow Monkeys was quite a last minute and hence, we could only spend one night at Yudanaka.

 
(view from the train, lovely, isn't it?)

   
(I really love sleeping on futons on tatami mats!)

We reached Yudanaka at about 11:30, I think.  Lunch was that ekiben that we had earlier which was more like brunch, I suppose.  But we didn't want to waste too much time.  So after we checked in and rested a bit.  Then the owner of the ryokan we were staying in very kindly drove us to the entrance of the Monkey Park.  He even loaned us some snow boots.

As you can see, there was a lot of snow.  So SY was quite pleased. :)



The walk to the place where the snow monkeys are was a pleasant and pretty walk.  The monkeys roam freely around the park, so you may already see them even before reaching the pools of hot spring water where they bathe.  They were quite comfortable with humans but not overly friendly which is good. They walked around us like we were just another strange animal but they didn't ask for food or snatch at anything.  That was very pleasant.

Here are a couple of photos of the snow monkeys. :)

First, from my Olympus Pen, they haven't been edited and these are the jpeg copies that the camera shoots.  I forgot to bring my data cable, so I can't get to the raws, unfortunately.

    

I actually shot a video of the baby monkeys swimming too.  So cute! But That's in the Olympus camera and it wouldn't transfer over via WiFi to my phone properly, so maybe I'll try and upload it after I get back to Singapore. :)

The snow really did come down after a while and SY and I had already spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the park so we headed down to the entrance to hide from the snow.  We also decided to get a bite to eat and something hot to drink while we waited for our ride.

I'm really not sure if these are really that delicious but we were cold and hungry and it all tasted great to us. :D

  

Soon after stuffing our faces, our ride arrived and we were back and resting in our ryokan again. :)

The falling light that evening was really lovely.

  

After snapping some shots and resting, we decided to have an early dinner so that we could go to the outdoor onsen that night. :)

  

I thought it was pretty good.  The gyoza was tasty and so was the tendon.  Finished everything on my plate :)  I was really stuffed!! But it was really good.  So no regrets there. :D

After that, it was back to the ryokan and then off to our outdoor onsen.  No photos for that for obvious reasons. :)  It was super cold and the onsen was actually across the road from our ryokan.  We weren't dressed appropriately for a walk in the snow to the onsen, so we were really really thankful when we could finally get our bodies into the hot spring water.  After that, it was all good!! Snow all around us in an outdoor onsen, that's a first for me and it was a pretty good experience. After our soak, we were so warm, we had no real trouble getting back to the ryokan.  I didn't even shiver. :)

Then it was a good night's sleep because the next day we needed to be up bright and early to go off to Kyoto. :)

That's it for Day 3. :)  I need to wrap up quickly because I need to catch a flight soon. :)

cheers