🐒
today was the best day of my life. that isn’t hyperbole, i really think i had the best day i’ve ever had today.
this one will probably be a long one. there are a lot of photos.
the journey
i started the day with my first ever ride on a shinkansen, a bullet train. this particular train maxes out at 257 kilometers per hour (160mph), but there are some trains that go much faster than this. there is a train that has reached 603 km/h (375 mph) on a test track, with a planned actual operating speed of 500 km/h (311 mph). it is going to be used for a line that is currently being built going from tokyo to nagoya in 40 minutes, and then an extension from nagoya to osaka in 27 minutes.
because it was my first time ever using one, i paid extra to ride on “gran class”, which is like first class. on this train, there were 3 seating options. regular car, the green car, and gran class. I was in seat 1-a, seen below:
on the trip to nagano, this was at the front of the train. on the return trip, it was the back. this was an extremely cool experience.
legroom actually exists in japan!
the chair was extremely adjustable too.
the “gran class experience” also came with a pair of slippers to use on the train (that were hilariously too small anyway so I didn’t), a packet of salami, a water bottle, and a ridiculously fancy menu of free food and drinks.
i just got an apple juice. it was pretty good.
the train departed from tokyo station (weirdly funny to me that there is a station called tokyo station) at 7:52 am and arrived at nagano station at 9:32 am. i had to meet the tour guide at 9:35 in the train station, so there was no time for any delays. thankfully, the japan train system is notoriously punctual, so i didn’t have any issues.
the route the train took.
I arrived without issue and easily found the tour location. there were about 30 of us on the tour today.
when i originally signed up for the tour, i noticed it included other activities besides seeing the monkeys, but my eyes kinda glazed over and i didn’t pay too close attention to them. for me, this was all about the monkeys.
i did not realize the effect this would have when booking, but this was my first time seeing any part of japan outside of the densely packed streets and buildings of tokyo.
the city of nagano is the capital of the nagano prefecture of japan, and is surrounded by several large mountains. it has a population density of 438 persons per square kilometer. tokyo has a population density of 6,300 persons per square kilometer. it isn’t a small town at all, it has a population of over 365,000, which is well over double the city i live in. but since i have been in tokyo for 10 days, it feels like a small town.
nagano hosted the winter olympics in 1998. i don’t know why i am infodumping about nagano, but i really liked it. perhaps because it is my first journey outside tokyo and it was a literal breath of fresh mountain air, but i just think its neat.
the tour walked over to the tour bus and began the trip.
Zenkō-ji
our first stop was Zenkō-ji, a 1400 year old buddhist temple. Zenkō-ji is really interesting because it was built before buddhism split into multiple sects. there are actually 2 different sects of buddhism operating out of Zenkō-ji, Jōdo-shū and tendai.
please note that i am not a buddhism expert and i am only describing what was described to me here.
many of the statues in this temple are wearing red, which i was told is because old tradition said that color red would ward off illness and evil spirits.
these little smiling statues are called jizo. and their meaning is sad but kind of beautiful. the guide explained that when a young child dies before their parents, or dies before birth, they cannot cross the river to the afterlife. the jizo are guardian deities that watch over these children and protect them from yokai, evil spirits. thus, people put red clothing on the jizo to protect them (and by extension the children) from evil spirits.
there are many jizo statues in japan, along roads, trails, shrines, temples, et cetera. they can be found all over the place.
i am not super knowledgeable in buddhism, so this is all coming secondhand from how it was explained to me. but according to the tour guide, the jizo are bodhisattva, which are people who have become enlightened, but choose to forego buddha-hood and assist others in their journey to become enlightened.
parents offer garments, toys, bibs, and the like to the jizo statue in hopes that their child will be safely guided to the afterlife.
the first place i visited was the daihongan, a building off to the side where the head priestess lives, and a temple to the Jōdo Sect.
this statue depicts yoshimitsu honda, who discovered this statue of buddha and 2 bodhisattva in the water, after it was thrown there during conflict between buddhism and shinto, the japanese religion that was already established existed when buddhism came to the country. he carried the statue on his back to nagano and founded the temple.
i spent a lot of time here, soaking in the atmosphere and learning about the Jōdo-shū. i also got a stamp book:
at temples and shrines in japan, you can get a stamp that is unique to that location. this one, the red part was done with a stamp and then the rest was done by hand with a calligraphy brush. i confess i have no idea what it says, but it really is beautiful. i intend to try to get more stamps while i am in japan. maybe more if/when i return in the future.
i spent a bit too much time at this part of the temple, and didn’t have enough time to see the rest of it before the tour moved on.
over the time i was here, the weather began to clear up significantly. it was raining when i arrived in nagano, very lightly sprinkling when i got to the temple, and nearly sunny by the time we left.
sake tasting + lunch
the next stop was a sake tasting tour, where i got no photos. i have done my best with the photos i take to avoid getting pictures of other people when possible. i don’t like the idea of being photographed by a stranger, so i don’t want to photograph strangers. the sake tasting tour was in a business called yoshinoya (no relation to the beef bowl chain - yoshino is a not uncommon last name).
we tried a ton of different kinds of sake. they explained the process of making sake and how it is graded based on how much of the rice is milled out before fermentation. it was pretty interesting. they just kept giving us tiny little cups of sake one after the other. i don’t know how much i drank, but i drank a lot very quickly. i got a little tipsy.
after the tour, it was on to lunch. they had already reserved lunch for us, and had us choose at the start of the tour whether we wanted chicken, beef, or vegetarian. i asked the tour guide what he recommended and he said beef, so i chose beef.
this lunch was delicious. one of the best meals i’ve had in japan. it was a ton of food. big bowl of soup, a vegetarian sushi roll, 2 pieces of tamagoyaki, and some tasty desserts.
after the meal, i got a couple photos of the surrounding area and out the window of the bus on the way to our final stop, jigokudani monkey park.
monke
on to the main event! the thing i have been the most excited for since long before getting on the plane to japan. the weather gods cursed me on the mt. fuji tour, but it seems they were kind to me today, because the weather cleared up and was looking great.
the monkey park is located deep in a valley between several large mountains in the the joshinetsu kogen national park. it is called jigokudani, jigoku meaning hell, and dani meaning valley, because of the steam and boiling water coming up from the ground in several areas around the valley.
to get there, you have to climb up a 2 kilometer (1.6 mile) trail up to it. it has an altitude of about 850 meters (2,800 feet), compared to nagano’s 371 meters (1,217 feet). so for me it is quite the hike. this is the most active thing i have literally ever done in my life.
the trail to get there is loosely maintained, and goes back and forth between semi-steep inclines and flat trails. most of the group got up there in about a half hour. it took me about 50 minutes, for a couple reasons. first and most importantly, i am incredibly out of shape. so this trail was hard for me. secondly, the trail is covered in mud and ice, and is a constant slip hazard. my shoes are not as suited for that as i thought they were, and i had to walk veeeerrrry slowwwwwly for a few parts of it. i didn’t want to roll an ankle, or worse, break my camera. so it took me quite a long time to get there. i didn’t know this until i was all the way back down at the end, but there is a store at the foot of the trail that i thought was just a gift shop. turns out they also sell elastic net things with spikes on them you can put on your shoes to make the walk less treacherous. i would have bought those had i known.
regardless, i did not slip and fall.
the trail was beautiful. one of the most beautiful parts of nature i’ve seen. the area is interesting because you can so clearly see how difficult it must have been to make a trail at all. it is a steep mountainside with a trail carved into it.
this area has a mystical atmosphere to it. there were lots of people walking it, but nearly everyone did so silently. no one was told to do so, but i think everyone just kind of shut up and appreciated what they were seeing.
trees jutting out at 45 degree angles from the trail we were walking, sunlight rays peaking out between them, the sounds of distant large waterfalls and close small trickles along the trail, the squishing of footsteps in the mud, birds chirping, small rocks or pieces of ice rolling down the mountain every so often clicking and clacking against the trees before stopping on the trail in front of us - this place felt really disconnected from time. it felt like everywhere else in the world stopped existing while walking this trail. it was truly magical in a way i don’t think photos can capture. the trail leading to the monkeys was itself an amazing part of the trip.
there were a bunch of signs along the route:
when i finally arrived, i was greeted by this little guy
i want to stress here that this is not like a zoo. these are wild monkeys. they can come and go as they please. they have free reign here. it is not any kind of enclosure. the monkeys walk around and do whatever they want. they walk right up to you and touch you, often. it was built here for a purpose. the city near where they live was expanding, and the monkeys were coming down the mountain and pillaging the farmland. rather than killing the monkeys to stop it from happening, they instead built this place far away from the farmland, and did their best to make it more attractive to the monkeys than the farms were. they feed the monkeys here daily. the monkeys much prefer a free meal and a shorter trip from home. they do not live here. they come here during the day for food and relaxation, and then go home, further up the mountain.
this place is a hot spring, and in the winter the monkeys regularly sit in the hot water and relax. because it is no longer winter, the monkeys are not as cold, so they weren’t in the water. but instead they were either sunbathing or running around playing and having fun, interacting with people and each other. i got a couple videos as well
this was the most breathtaking thing i have ever seen. both because the hike literally took my breath away, and also because it was beautiful. i would say i highly recommend it to everyone visiting japan, but it is pretty far out of the way of everything else you would likely be doing. if you are anywhere nagano, or have an entire free day while in tokyo, i highly highly highly recommend visiting this place. there is nowhere else like it in the world.
it was time to head back down the way i came. significantly easier given the downhill nature of it, but it felt a little more treacherous to walk downhill on slippery terrain.
the trail reminds me of many different places i’ve been. the clean air reminds me of washington. the trees feel like several places in california. the snow and mud remind me of boise. maybe homesickness is starting to set in, but the trail kind of felt like a highlight reel of several of the places i have been in my life.
back to tokyo
it was time to say goodbye to nagano and return back to tokyo once more. i took a couple more pictures of the city before i left.
i took the same gran class shinkansen back home that i arrived in, once again in seat 1-a. i was quite tired at this point, so i mostly slept on the train. i intended to edit photos on the train ride home, but i forgot my sd card reader adapter, so i was unable to do so.
after arriving home, i took the world’s fastest shower and changed clothes, then joined my airbnb host and her friend at her home, along with another airbnb guest she has staying a different apartment in this building. it was a great experience, and a perfect way to end the day.
i think this was the most fulfilling day you could have on a vacation. traveled first class, saw something beautiful, got a little drunk, ate a delicious meal, went on a hike, saw a ton of monkeys, and had a great conversation with new people. 10/10. highlight of the trip. everything could go catastrophically bad from here on out and it will still have been worth it.
