Monkeying Around

Yesterday, Damian and I went on a bus tour from the base to Nagano prefecture (state) which is about 4-5 hours away. Nagano, Japan should sound familiar to you as it is the home of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games! (* fun fact alert: Nagano has been the southernmost host of the Winter Olympic Games!) It is absolutely beautiful and a very popular area for skiing/snowboarding! Nagano is located in the Japanese Alps and is in the middle area of the main island of Japan. Our first stop on this tour was Matsumoto Castle as seen in the picture. One thing that you notice right away when looking at this castle was that it is made of wood as opposed to other castles in the world that are mainly made of stone. The castle originates back to 1504 and is designated as a national treasure of Japan and one of the most beautiful castles of Japan. This castle is also known as "crow castle" because of it's black exterior! Matsumoto castle has all the elements of a good and strong castle... a mote, a bridge, and many gates. Inside the castle there were holes in the walls that were different sizes... these are called tazama or teppozama and were used for firing arrows or muskets when under attack! There were also hidden areas where they could drop rocks on anyone trying to scale the castle walls. It was all set up very cleverly! The castle was absolutely freezing... even Damian was pretty cold! Back in the day when the castle was being used, they didn't have an fires inside because it is made of wood so they just had to put layers on. With all of the windows and weapon windows the castle is very open and the cold air comes right inside... I certainly wouldn't have survived during this period!!! We had to take our shoes off when getting there and then we carried them around with us while wearing these slippers that were way too wide and big for any female feet and way too small for any male feet! I felt like I was shuffling throughout the castle in my grandpa's stretched out slippers! The slippers made the stairways a little difficult to navigate. The stairs for each floor were located in a different area on each floor and all strategically placed. The stairways were at 50-60 degree angles (more like a ladder than a staircase)! Considering this castle is 500 years old it is in remarkable shape and has been preserved very well.

Next we stopped for a quick lunch at a rest stop. Nagano prefecture is famous for its apples so of course we bought a BIG bag of delicious apples and some apple kit kats (yes I said apple) and some other yummy apple snacks too! *Sidenote: Japan has super crazy kit kat flavors... green tea, wasabi, blueberry cheesecake, banana, cookies and cream, strawberry cheesecake, apple, chile pepper, etc... After lunch we bundled up even more as we kept heading more north into the mountains. Next stop was into the Jigoku-dani valley to go to the Snow Monkey Park! At this point we were about a 3000 foot elevation to give you an idea and the day before we went they had just received about 6 inches of fresh snow! Once we arrived at the parking lot in the bus we had about a 40 minute hike ahead of us... they had warned us the trail may be snow covered or muddy but I wasn't really expecting it to be icy! The first part was the worst because it was sort of steep and ice covered... I had a nice little fall right onto my wrists (ouch) but at least I got it out of the way early on... after that is wasn't too bad and more just slush and snow! It was actually a really nice hike, a few steep parts, but our group got pretty spread out and for awhile there was no one else around and it was very peaceful! Snow covers the ground in this part of Japan about 1/3 out of every year. Once we got closer to the actual "snow monkey park" there were monkeys all over the place!

The real name of the snow monkeys are Japanese Macaques! They are native to Japan and are distinguished by their grey fur and red faces. You may have seen them on a special done by National Geographic last year! In this particular snow monkey park there are about 200 monkeys! These monkeys are omnivores and eat insects, plants, soil... and when there are no plants to be found they will dig under the snow to get to the roots of plants. These are very intelligent animals! They have a slightly higher body temperature than us at around 102 degrees Fahrenheit... kind of like having a fever all the time.. although it was pretty cold there so it probably feels nice! The monkeys faces get redder as they are warmer so as you can see the monkeys in the hot springs have redder faces than the ones climbing around outside. They were all just hanging out in the hot springs, grooming each other and staring at us. They can be aggressive creatures and you are warned not to look into their eyes... I kept my sunglasses on just to be on the safe side... then I could totally stare at them! It was surprising how close we could get to them without even spooking them at all. At one point Damian and I were standing next to each other... like maybe a foot away from each other and a pretty big monkey walked right in between us like we weren't even there! There were also a lot of baby monkeys climbing around and hitching rides on their mother's back! It was definitely worth the long bus ride and getting up before dawn to head up to Nagano. We had a great day together on this adventure!

Japanese Word of the Day:
Saru (saw-roo): Monkey