After Tokyo we headed to the small town of Yamanouchi-machi to visit Jigokudani Monkey Park. Yes, it’s just what it sounds like. Jigokudani is an outdoor park in the mountains where wild monkeys live and hang out in the hot springs, and silly tourists like me can take photos of them! They were so cute, and they aren’t afraid of humans. One of them even ran into my leg! To get to the monkeys, you have to walk along a trail about a mile from where the bus drops you off. The park is well maintained, there’s good bus service, and there’s a great restaurant there! If you go in the off-season, I would highly recommend eating at the restaurant in the park instead of trying to find food in the town, since the town was quite empty.
We loved the monkey park so much that we went two days in a row! Our AirBnB owner, Daisuke (located at 2277 Hirao), thought we were crazy. There’s not much to do in the town besides look at monkeys and bathe in onsen (hot springs). The restaurants have very limited food options and lots of places are closed or have limited opening hours, especially in March. This led to me getting pretty hangry and majorly annoying Tim, but luckily we survived. We really enjoyed the hot springs. Our AirBnB, which is actually a hotel, has a contract with another hotel to use their onsen. They gave us traditional bathing gear (yukata) and clackety flip flops.
The onsen was so relaxing. In Japan, onsen bathing is separate for men and women, and you don’t wear clothes, so I had to go bathe in the onsen by myself. It was an amazing experience. I bathed in a beautiful, secluded grove of trees, surrounded by small stone statues and shrines under the full moon above.
WanderLiz 