After leaving the relative warmth of Tokyo it was heading
north to Nagano. It was a smooth drive getting up there. At one point we were
able to see Mount Fuji as we passed on the highway.
Getting closer to Nagano it was great to see the landscape
changing. The snowcapped mountains of the “Japanese Alps” started to pop up on
the horizon. It was quite a beautiful site to see from the car.
We found the hotel and settled in. That evening because we
had time we went to see Les Miserables. As those who read my blog know I have
already seen it, my Dad hadn’t so this was for him. He really enjoyed it.
The 28th was the real fun day. We started out
early with a trip out to Jigokudani Snow
Monkey Park.
This was an amazing stop. We had to park the car and walk
for about 30 minutes, but it was a nice walk through a snow filled forest. Even
before going into the park proper we saw a few of the monkeys.
After entering the park we saw even more of the creatures.
It was another little bit of a walk to finally get to their little hot spring
bath. Here there were quite a lot of the macaques, from tiny little babies to
full grown male leaders.
The park area is currently home to one clan of monkeys, a
group of about 160 monkeys. This group tends to hang around the park area and
will force and keep out any other monkey. These monkeys also get fed and that
keeps them around the humans and makes them feel ok to have people close to
them.
We spent a few hours at the park and then made our way back
to Nagano City. Here we went to Zenkoji Temple. As we got to the temple it
started snowing quite heavily. The snowflakes were huge and coated the land in a
nice layer of snow. It also made the temple grounds really nice to walk
through.
Overall Nagano was a nice stop on this trip.
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