Yamanouchi: 03.19.2018 – Day 2

Another bright and early morning with canned coffee and breakfast at the hotel:

We attempted to go to the Ueno Zoo to see the baby panda but the Zoo is closed on Mondays.

We traveled back to Tokyo station to begin our long journey to see the Snow Monkeys!!! In preparation for the trip, we grabbed a snack for the ride. The green tea we purchased at a convenience store came with a sock to insulate the beverage, cute right!?

We took an hour and a half bullet train to Nagano and then jumped on a 50 minute express bus to the outskirts of Yamanouchi. Once we arrived to the outskirts, we had a 2.4km/1.5mile walk to the Snow Monkey Park Entrance.

We arrived later then we wanted to due to site seeing along the way. We got to stroll through the town and see some of the onsen’s around. This really worked out in our favor from a lighting perspective for pictures and we were able to see the feeding for the snow monkeys.

Walking into the park was a little nerve wrecking, the anticipation of the unknown was an adrenaline rush. With that said, walking in and seeing dozens of monkeys running around was breath taking. We took video but it doesn’t come close to capturing what we saw and felt. Additionally, the monkey’s are a bit camouflaged in due to their color being similar to the rocks. Therefore, the video is hard to make out. I did however, get video of one of the most intense experiences, watch below:

This mama and baby are walking directly towards us!! It was the best experience thus far. Some more fun footage of the monkeys below:

Monkeying around!

Fighting on David’s foot! – HAHAHA

David and I both got the opportunity to take pictures with monkeys around us both.

4:00PM came and went too fast, we had to leave since the park was closing a little before dusk. We started heading back on our long walk to the bus and really enjoyed the sites around us. 

The trees on the grounds were magnificent.

Once completing the trail, we stopped at a local café and grabbed some hot chocolate and hot wine. DELICIOUS!

The day was long, and we had plans to go get steamed buns for dinner but as we were on our way home our energy deteriorated. We decided to call it a night and just head back to the hotel. The hotel didn’t really have many options for dinner and we were both very hungry and tired. David went to the front desk to ask for a recommendation for food and we made our way there across the street.

GONPACHI

Descriptions of food we ordered in picture:

First Row (left to right): Menu –> Grapefruit Highball & Ginger Highball –> Kuzumochi and Kinako Ice Craem

Middle Row (left to right): Eringi (Mushrooms) –> Shrimp Tempura –> Yukke (Tuna Tartar)

Last Row (left to right): Kamonan Seiro Soba (Soba noodles with Duck breast broth) and Toro (Tuna Skewers)  –> 2 Ebi Shinjyo (Shrimp Dumplings)

We really enjoyed this Izakaya style restaurant, taking our shoes off and relaxing by the window overlooking the water.

Yet another successful day in Japan!!!