Monkey Business

I slept in a little bit this morning, cooked up a fried egg sandwich, and then went out the door to meet the school librarian at Befu station. She had planned a trip to see some monkeys – I joined her family on a mini-roadtrip to the northwest of my town.

The drive was easy – we loaded up the family wagon. The librarian’s husband and son came along, and I sat in back with the son. He was so shy that it was a pretty quiet ride. The drive took about 90 minutes, which isn’t so bad. We traveled away from major cities, and ended up in some pretty hilly countryside.

We ended up at a temple built on a green hillside, and after walking through the temple grounds we followed a path up a hill until we came to the “Monkey Park”. They charged us 400 yen a head to get in, and then there was another fairly long walk up the hills, walking alongside a fast moving stream. The stream had some nice waterfalls along the way, and the whole time we were searching the treetops for monkeys.

Finally at the top we found the monkeys.

The place was full of monkeys, and the monkeys were running wild. These monkeys were running around chasing each other, jumping up and down on the rooftops of the buildings and walking right by you as if it was perfectly natural for a big human to be in the way. The monkeys weren’t friendly at all – they bared their teeth if they felt threatened by you, but generally if you let them do what they want, they tend to get right up close to you.

At first it was cute, but after a while it got a little scary. They had a cage for the visitors, and inside the cage you could buy “monkey food”. The monkeys would casually walk up to the cage and wait for someone to come by. You were supposed to put the food on a little area near the bottom of the cage, but most people held open their hand and the monkey reached right in to take it off your hand. Sometimes kids would piss off the monkeys and they would screech or swat at the little kids. It seemed like a dangerous situation – something that wouldn’t fly back home.

We took quite a few pictures, and then headed back down the hill to our car and the next stop.

We drove about twenty minutes to a town up in the hills that is a ski resort during the winter. Right now it’s very green and lush, and they were having some kind of town event in the field located in the middle of the tiny town. We joined the event to picnic, and as far as I could tell it was some kind of event celebrating wood. They had woodcutters, contests involving cutting wood, and even some prizes given to people that handle wood in the most extraordinary way. Wood.

Before I know it the librarian had not only laid out a huge picnic spread for everyone, she entered us in various contests despite our relative ineptitude with wood. There were a lot of people that looked like they worked with wood all the time, and I was a little intimidated.

After lunch Hiro, the librarian’s son, and I played catch. We were having a good time when they called our names. The event that I competed in was a log throwing contest. They had small logs, and you had to get the log as close to another log as possible. The crowd actually hushed when I stepped up with my log. Can the foreigner throw a log? Will he show us all up?

I chucked the wood, and it came within a few meters of the target. I was happy enough with that, but they made me throw another one, too. That one landed a little closer, and everyone clapped politely as I made my way out of the limelight.

We played another round of baseball, and then we packed up our gear and took off. I think that some of the people were hoping I would compete in the fastest saw competition, but we had things we had to do. The next stop was at a natural spring. We filled up all of our containers and the librarian had even brought a giant plastic jug to fill up.

After that we were pretty tired. We made one last stop along the river to walk around a bit, and then we headed back. As we drove back through the mountains, rice paddies, and waterfalls, I couldn’t help thinking how different my experience in Japan would be if I was placed somewhere this remote.

I imagine that I would probably do a lot more hiking – the hills and views in this area were dramatic, and to be able to do that every day would be great. Right now I have to take the train to get to a mountain to hike, which is not so convenient. I think my diet would be different – I would have to take a bus to get to a supermarket or the nearest train station. I probably would end up buying a car. I might have only stayed for a year being out in the boonies – who knows? There is a whole part of Japan that I’m missing by sticking to the trains. I need to think about ways to explore these areas, too.

On the way home there was some serious traffic, so it took a long time to get back. One thing about traveling by train everywhere is that there is usually no traffic. I had forgotten what a bummer traffic can be.

It was a great day – I saw monkeys as advertised, and it was good to spend time with a cool family. They were all really nice and I’m hoping that we can do something again soon.