Yamanouchi Town- Shibu Onsen

Monday afternoon we rode this old fashion train from Nagano to Yamanouchi Town where we stayed at Shibu Onsen.

I felt like we were going back in time riding this old train! It was a cool experience going through the mountains in the snow.

We stayed in a traditional Japanese inn called a Ryokan. The name of ours was Matsya. Shibu Onsen is an area in Yamanouchi town known for it 9 onsens. Onsens are natural hot springs, that are turned into public bath houses. Each onsen is divided, one side is for males and the other side is for females. Each of the onsens has a different healing affect depending on the minerals. We were provided with the traditional Japanese robes to wear to the onsens. I think we visited 4 or 5 of them.

Our Ryokan!

This onsens healing effect was stomach and intestines.

This one was called Oyu and is know to cure all sickness.

The town was really beautiful with all the snow and the traditional Japanese architecture.

We saw a few monkeys in the the town. The store owners work hard to keep the monkeys out of the town area because they cause a lot of problems!

This monkey opened the window to a guests room in our hotel and took a cup of ramen. We were down on the street and heard girls screaming and when looked up we saw the monkey sitting on the ledge opening up the ramen. It was so funny! Once we got back to our room I made sure our windows were locked!

The monkey knocked over the basket of eggs. They were boiling the eggs with the hot spring water.

Entrance to the Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park. We had to walk through the forest for about 30 mins to see the monkeys.

"Because there is a situation when a step is bad, please be careful". I thought that was cute! There were plenty of bad steps, in fact Justin ate it once!

Family of monkeys!

Taking a hot soak!

Mama Monkey!

Cleaning each other up!

Hugs!

The monkey park was amazing! The monkeys are not restricted to the area but the park does feed them in the morning. There were over 200 monkeys in the area that were warming up in the natural hot springs. The monkeys have no problems with people and just go about their business. You can go right up to them but you are not suppose to touch them. They also said you should avoid eye-contact as it makes them feel threatened. Really cool experience to see the wild monkeys!