monkey business too

Took a while, bit of fresh snow to deal with (waist deep in fact), but here are some monkey photos from our visit to them on Thursday. What a great little excursion, we were taken in a little mini bus to a national park only 45 mins away and then walked for 20 mins or so up a picturesque snow covered valley to the Snow Monkeys. This group of monkeys observed humans bathing in an outdoor onsen complex beside the river and began wandering in and bathing with the humans. Eventually they all got into it and became a bit of a nuisance, so they built an outdoor pool (onsen) further up the valley near the source just for the monkeys. It's fantastic, these guys just hang out for ages in the hot onsen, preening, dozing etc. They are not at all bothered by us tourists and don't hassle or pinch things like other monkeys are known to. It's almost as if they just totally ignore the curious humans altogether.

As part of our little tour, we stopped off at a very famous onsen on the way back to our lodge. Located half way up a mountain valley, the onsen itself is outdoors on the side of a steep snow covered valley with a beautiful view across the hills and a long vista out to the main river valley in the distance. It was snowing heavily, and after a quick wash down outdoors, butt naked (brrrr!), snow sizzling on my skin, I hastily dipped into the hot waters of the natural stone lined onsen. I leaned my head back and reveled in this sublime experience. Large soft snowflakes landed on my face, not cold, but a soft electric tingle that contrasted yet complemented the very hot water encompassing me. Every now and then I would haul up on the side of the rocks like some strange pink seal to cool off with the snow falling all over me.

monkey business

We're heading off to visit these guys this afternoon. It's about 40 min from where we're staying then a 20-30 minute walk through a forest. As part of the package we get to have an onsen in a rather nice looking outdoor onsen nearby in the forest. Stand by for an update.

On the snow front, after a rather (relatively) warm day yesterday, a new system has moved on off the Sea of Japan and it's been dumping heavily since early this morning. Probably a good 30cm so far (midday) and it's forecast to continue well into tomorrow.

Tempting as it was to cancel or excursion this afternoon and jump into the powder, out legs are just not up to it. By midday yesterday they had turned to jelly and demanded some down time - enough is enough already!

At least it was sunny and I was able to have a good wander around the village with my camera, so I'll have a bunch of photos to post soon. Here's a couple of teasers.

moday was a sunday

On Monday we had the clearest day we've had so far. The views from the top of the mountain were fantastic, we could see right across the Nagano prefectures corner of the Japanese alps. Looking out to the North West we could just see a large bay and the Sea of Japan.

more pics

Nagano update

Well we almost made it to the Zenkoji temple in Nagano city today. Took us ages to get half way there (waylaid in the 100 yen shop) and then happened to bump into a frenzy of police activity that eventually resulted in a wave from the princess driving by in her cavalcade. We'll definitely head in there again for a day trip. Saturdays are a good day to take off here as things get busy and crowded (relatively) on the slopes with the locals heading up for some fun on the snow.

more pics

Nagano

We're taking a day off skiing today and heading into Nagano city. It's only an hour and 15 mins by bus / train. Should be interesting, people have recommended the Zen temple there as a must see (5-600 AD). Busy night in the lodge here at present, 20 young American students turned up for the weekend. They're all teaching english here in Japan and are having a get together and ski this weekend, actually there's 88 of them spread across 3 lodges. Things got pretty rowdy later on, but we managed to sleep ok.

Yes! Great powder day today... here's a couple of little vids to wet your appetite.
Misch extricating herself from a powder hole, then finishing smoothly



Me

onsen = bath = everywhere

This town is famous for its onsens (public baths) hence its name - Nosawa Onsen. They are literally dotted all around the town and range from slightly dingy / dodgy concrete tubs right up to plush tile and wood complexes. The locals are into the onsen thing big time (as are many of our lodge mates) and use them daily. One enters into a locker room, strips butt naked and proceeds to a washing area and to sit on a small stool in front of a set of taps with a hand shower device. This is where you wash thoroughly (a must) sitting down, quite a few of the Japanese will sit there for ages, soaping and scrubbing furiously. Once all this is taken care of, you can then enter the onsen itself. The one we went to nearby our lodge (they're segregated into male & female areas), was roughly the size of a small pool and deep enough to sit with the water level up to your neck - you can soak as long as you wish with your fellow onseners (yeah I made that up). At the end of it all you just shower down and you're done!

The water for the onsens is piped from natural hot mineral springs that bubble out of the mountain at the village level. There's quite a few of them and they are of varying temperature. One, over near the temple, is even used as a cooking onsen by the villagers. We've eaten eggs cooked in there...yummy!

There's so much hot water bubbling out around the place that they actually pipe it under the roads to heat them. This keeps them snow free, which is good but a little weird. It's a little hard reconciling the sound of car tires on wet roads with being in the snow. There's lots of warm water running down all the sides of the roads too in deep concrete gutters. When it's snowing lots (like today) the locals are busy scooping snow off pathways etc and dumping it into these gutters where it melts quickly and is carried away. Misch finds the sound of the running water everywhere strange as it reminds her of the snow melt in Australia during spring. Many of the car parks have a steel pipe with holes in it running at ground level on the uphill side and it just squirts hot/warm water across the car park surface to keep them snow free, sort of like a car park soaker hose really.

Blizzard here today, dumping snow big time and high winds. The upper mountain was closed down around midday because of the weather. We got some great knee deep powder runs all over the place today and most of them were on piste! The wind is supposed to abate tonight and then the snow will continue through to the weekend. Tomorrow morning is looking good!

b.t.w. the little link below the posts titled comments allows you to comment of any of the posts. Do so if your inclined, it would be nice to hear from you.

Backside of monuntain deep - deep is good

Well two more days of skiing under our boots and we're getting the lay of the land here. Yesterday we headed off the back side of the peak and dropped into a tree run falling into a steep gully... the snow was thigh deep in places - fantastic turns! As it ran out into an even steeper section and thick scrub, we hacked our way across slope and dropped in to a little bowl and then into the bottom of the valley proper. Looking back up we could see that the gully we were skiing turned into a little cliff line 10-15m high, so we were happy we didn't continue down that way, I don't think I was quite up to a 10m jump so early in the piece! After a long run out, we hit the noodle restaurant for a well deserved break.

Today was sunny here in the village with a dusting of snow, once we hit mid mountain we ascended into cloud and light snowfall, it had snowed 5-10 cm up on top over night. Being a Monday, the slopes were virtually empty, most runs only had a hand full of people on them (if that). Found another couple of powder runs through trees, one in particular was really beautiful, large well spaced trees on an intermediate slope.... ending in a creek gully and a bit of a bash out. But now we've done it once we have a run out made for ourselves, so it'll be easier.

There's a lot of terrain here and our impression to the area is much more positive after what weve discovered on and off piste these last couple of days. I've got a few shots of the terrain and snow covered trees that I'll upload soon.

Just heading out the door now up to the onsen for a soak..cheers

few more pics here

Nozawa Onsen

After several hours on the shinkansen (bullet train), we arrived at the resort in Nozawa Onsen yesterday arvo, sorted out season passes, hit the supermarket and settled into the lodge. The lodge is pretty good, bigger room than we had in Niseko, nice bunch of people, really hard futons but! with tiny wheat filled bags that are supposed to pass as pillows!? Misch is not impressed! We'll be doing some serious rearranging of sleeping resources tonight.

Had our first day on the slopes today, 15cm of fresh powder thank you very much. Very beautiful on the mountain with lots of deciduous treas covered in snow. First impressions of the skiing are a little mixed though. There's a lot of pretty soft runs here, but the off piste looks impressive, it'll take a few days to get a feel for where it's best and safest to ski as there's some pretty deep stuff out there after many days of good snow falls! A few of the tree runs I did today were knee deep plus and I hear from a few of the guys in the lodge that there's a lot of deeper stuff out there still (apparently bottomless off the back side of the peak,
There's a bunch of photos here from Tokyo

Hello from Japan! Misch and I arrived to a crisp, sunny 8 degree Tokyo day after yet another (too long) trip on a flying fart accumulator! We stayed in Asakusa, an older part of Tokyo. Bit more laid back around there with a very famous Shinto shrine and surrounding markets nearby. Did a trip into Ginza last night for a meal and some shopping. Ginza is that famous shopping strip with all the neon etc that you often see. All pretty over the top and lots of fun. I'll get some photo's up soon.