January & February: Snow Monkeys, Matsumoto Castle and a Snow Storm

January and February were pretty quiet months around here.  It did get a bit colder than it normally does, which made me just want to stay home half of the time.  The other half I just carried on as normal, going to work and all that fun stuff.  

One of the more memorable things we did was go on an MWR tour to a Snow Monkey Park and Matsumoto Castle, both in Nagano Prefecture.  Nagano is a beautiful mountainous prefecture that is about 5 hours (by car) northwest of us.  You probably know the name because they hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics. 

The Snow Monkey park was super cool.  These particular monkeys live in the forest in an area very close to some outdoor onsens (hot spring baths).   They used to bathe in the onsen for people,but of course that wasn't very sanitary, so eventually the local people built the monkeys their own onsens. They mostly stick to bathing in their own spots now, but they're wild and can go where they wish, so they sometimes still end up in the one for people. Only some of them get in the onsen, and our tour guide said it was the alpha male of the troop and his other high-up buddies. If the alpha male gets out of the onsen, the rest follow his lead. There are about 160 monkeys in the troop that lives there. The park rangers feed them some, but they still have to find food for themselves.

The monkeys were mellow and pretty much ignored the fact that so many people were watching them. They wouldn't walk up to you, but they had no problem walking right past you if you were on their desired path. A couple of them argued with each other, but they seemed oblivious to us.

We had a short snowy hike to get to the monkeys. 

The house on the left is where the human onsens are, and where the monkeys used to go all of the time, before they had their own spot.

He must be one of the high-up guys in the troop since he's allowed to hang out at the onsen. 

Just hanging out!

I loved this lady.  She just looked so happy to see the monkeys.  I wish I had a better picture of her.  Keep in mind that most Japanese are older than they look and she also took over a 2 km hike to get here.

One of the park rangers also acts as a photographer and has a couple of the monkeys trained to sit on the post by the tourists by throwing pieces of food at him.  Do you notice how Bryan is still trying to keep an eye on him, as if he doesn't trust the little guy??

Taking a walk over the water.  No big deal.

They're kind of like ducks in the way that they repel water from their skin. 

Part of the walk back to the bus.

Icicles remind me of my childhood.  And the building and lantern are pretty :-)

Love!

Our second stop of the day was to a Matsumoto Castle.  It features original wooden interiors and external stonework. It is a National Treasure of Japan.   It was built in 1504 and was used through 1868.  Japanese "castles" are more like what we could call a fort since they're designed to keep the bad guys out.  It was hard to get good pictures of the inside, but I'm sure you could do some Googling to come up with some. 

The snow makes a great picture, but I bet it's really gorgeous in the spring with the sakura and other flowers blooming.

A better picture of the castle, featuring the moat. 

Normally, Kanagawa only gets a couple of inches of snow every winter.  Even then, it melts within a couple of days.  This year we got over a foot of snow not once, but two weekends in a row!   One of the perks of living on the main road is that we get the plow to help us out.  The people that live on the small back roads have to shovel the road in front of their house.  It's a big community effort.  We are still responsible for clearing our parking space and the "sidewalk" area where people walk in front of our house.  One of our sweet neighbors knocked on our door and said, "I think maybe no shovel??"  Haha, yes, we have never had to own a shovel.  We lived in apartments in Ohio, where the sidewalks and parking lots were maintained for us, and then we lived in Florida.  Definitely no shovels!  He had an awesome shovel and we attempted to help by using baking sheets and mixing bowls to move the snow.   I showed my appreciation by sharing some homemade chocolate cake with him and some hot coffee.  He of course returned the container with some cookies for me from his wife. Very sweet people. 

The first weekend I was a hermit.  The second weekend I had to get out of the house.  It was also the weekend that Starbucks debuts their Sakura Frappuccinos.  Last year I thought I could wait until the sakura trees started to bloom, but I was very wrong.  They sell out very quickly!  Therefore, we had to go that day to guarantee I got to try the seasonal favorite.  This entailed a lovely walk down the snowy road and onto the trains that had recently started running again.

The snow started Friday afternoon and by Saturday afternoon it had started to melt already.

Turns out the sakura flavor taste a lot like super sweet strawberry.  It was okay, but I certainly didn't feel the need to get another anytime soon. 

Bryan got in a couple days of really good skiing.  He went to both Mt. Naeba and to Happo-One in Nagano, where some of the Olympic events were held. 

Skiing = Bryans "happy place"

That's the end of our winter adventures.  On to spring-time-ring-a-ding-a-ling-time!!