Japan: nagano

[forgotten_aria]

200401242200

We just spent the entire day traveling, taking the bus to the train, to another train, to another bus to a snowy thin 1.4 km path. All of our connections were fairly tight, so we did a lot of hurring as well. It was dark by the time we go to the path which on onside had a small steaming stream of hot spring water and on the other is a sometimes very sheer drop off into the valley below. Once we got to major hot spring river I could smell the sulfur. I'm not sure I'll be thinking of this water as a good thing to be bathing in.

Our dinner has a whole fish and a grasshopper as well as many other things. I'm still not feeling perfectly well so I'm not goint to eat much.

I've been warned that if we get to see the monkeys I should not stare them down, because that's a challenge and they might attack me. Great.

200401252128

Had a soak in the women's private, enclosed, monkey free bath. It doesn't smell quite as bad, but there is grey stuff floating in the water. I'll just ignore it for now. The hot soak is nice, though.

(post note: they gave us these komonos to wear to the bath (and really around the whole restort, plus they gave us a warmer komono to go over it so we won't be cold.)

200401251104

Ok, the monkeys were pretty neat. I'm amazed they just run around the
people taking pictures. So many people taking pictures too. The
people could get right up until their camera was right in the monkey's
face then the monkey would get out of the hot water suddenly and
douse them. They usually took this with cheer.

I got some pretty crudy shots with my little camera. This is one of
the dew times I wish I had a telephoto.

I'm not in the mood to be in the cold, so I'm back in the room. I
skipped breakfast because I'm still not feeling up to odd foods. I
had a pastry left over from Kyoto and there is no lunch, so hopefully
I can dig into dinner at 5:30.

I'm currently watching a medicine game show as I wait for dinner.

The bus to get up here had chains on it's wheels.

200401252000?

Ah, my first real meal (besides the sandwich on the train) since
getting sick. It's so good to have my appetite back, even if I'm
still avoiding strange mushrooms. I'm still bored here and anxious
to get back to Tokyo where, if nothing else, I could be playing pop
n', but would more likely be taking in more interesting sights.

(post note: we had wild boar, more fish, and more grasshoppers, among other things for dinner.