Jigokudani

Arvin and his friend Roy were visiting from the Philippines. They were doing the usual tourist route going from Osaka, Kyoto and then Tokyo.

I wanted to take them some place more special, something to really give them a taste of Japan's winter. I mean, they've never even seen snow before and they came here during winter of all times.

We joined a tour that departed from Shinjuku and after a 3 hour ride or so we got to Jigokudani in Nagano. The hike we had to do was definitely one of the highlights of the day. Trekking through such a beautiful winterscape was extremely relaxing and I was able to unwind a lot. Arvin and Roy were also ecstatic at the amazing views of the surrounding mountain ranges and snow-covered pine trees.

We encountered a natural geyser along the way, it was covered in ice and the steam was gushing out non-stop which was quite different to the geysers I saw over at Noboribetsu.

Even before reaching the famed onsen, we already started to see plenty of monkeys scurrying about. They weren't afraid of us at all, some were literally right by our legs. They were playing around and scavenging for food, the baby monkeys were particularly adorable too.

At the end of the hike was our reward, the snow monkeys bathing in the hot springs, all zen-like. It was supposed to be freezing but I couldn't feel it at all over the excitement of taking so many pictures. It would have been so cool to have been able to join the monkeys while bathing too, I wondered what they were thinking as they bathed while surrounded by tourists and cameras. Yet, they didn't seem to mind or even notice us as they continued about their usual interactions such as grooming each other.

We spent a long time just admiring them and when we decided to go, one of the park's staff started to feed them which attracted hundreds of monkeys, I didn't realize there were that many! The rest of the hike down was smooth yet a bit slippery but before long we got back to the bus and were headed to the Kamakura Igloos.Read more