January 8, 2024

Today is the Coming of Age day (observed) in Japan. Not that it was a big deal for us apart from some closures but thought I would share. What is relevant is that Nagano got its first major snow overnight. There was snow everywhere and it was lovely. We hoped the would prove good for our visit to Snow Monkey Park.

The stay at Shioriya continued to be charming. We had morning tea and soup with the owners. They then dropped us off at the bus. We had a minor challenge in that our IC cards on our phone did not work. We had come to rely on these for everything that we did not use our JR Pass for. Thankfully we had coins to pay and just walked like we knew what we were doing all along.

Once at Nagano station, we got tickets for the Snow Monkey Bus. This bus took us to the Shigakogen Museum where we then walked the 1.8km into the park. The path was packed with folks and quite icy.

As we arrived at the park we were greeted by a geyser. This geyser goes all the time instead of on some interval.

Once we got in, Snow Monkey Park did not disappoint. We saw Snow Monkeys everywhere and a bunch in the hot spring bathing. It was amazing and they are just in and among all the visitors.

Overall, just an amazing experience. The inn keeper said he had never seen so many. It seems like we got super lucky with the snow and the timing. If you want to check it out they do have a live camera (see it in the last photo) that you can watch.

From here we took a bit of a leap of faith. The default to go back would have been to follow the crowded trail back to the Snow Monkey Bus. However there is also a Snow Monkey Express train. We decided to follow a different path that was…a bit less travelled.

The road seems like they had not cleared it in a while. It was about 3km through the snow (but clearly a road). The biggest challenge was that the snow was probably 10”+ deep in places and took a bit to walk through. It was so much more peaceful though. We finally got to the town and walked to the Yudanaka station.

On the way it was interesting to see a town that just had hot water flowing through it. People just open the street grates, pushed the snow into it and the water melted it and carried it away. People had hot water taps and there were public baths that were fed by the spring all over the place.

We even stopped and got a soft boiled egg that has been cooked in the hot water flowing out of the building.

We made it to the train and enjoyed some dumplings as we headed back to Nagano station.

Back in Nagano we visited the Zenkō-Ji temple. We went inside and touched the worn wooden statue of Buddha for good luck. We also went through the crypt. You do this by descending a set of stairs and then walk through in total darkness. You run your hand on the wall to keep moving in the correct direction. It was cold and you do not have your shoes on. Just a very unique experience.

After that we did dinner of Tonkatsu (local Nagano fried pork cutlet) and made our way back to the inn, did some laundry and got ready for another day of adventures.

To close out the day, we did find yet another scramble crossing…we are becoming experts at these.