Nagano

What better time to explore than my first weekend in Japan. Eugene had a work ski trip in central Honshu the next week so we caught the Shinkansen to Nagano, home of the 1998 Winter Olympics. I have seen comparatively little snow in my life and was apparently a little too enamoured with the countryside which was covered in (clean!) snow.

On the bus to Zenko-ji, a non-denominational Buddhist temple, the elderly lady behind us struck up a conversation. After telling us how to pay for the bus (our original attempt where we put money in the slot when boarding the bus had resulted in us having much more change but no less money), she mentioned that she worked with a free volunteer tour guide group at the temple and that she would take us to them (while acting as a tour guide along the way). We opted to walk through the pitch black tunnel in order to touch a metal key which is the key to enlightenment, because, well, why not?
We stopped by the small town of Obuse to see the museum dedicated to the works of Katsushika Hokusai, including a collection showing all the steps used to create The Great Wave off Kanagawa with plates. We also bought some chestnut treats :) Our accommodation for the night was a "modern" ryokan where I almost fainted in my first onsen. Fun fact: tatami mats (the straw mats on the ground) are the unit of measurement for rooms in Japan rather than square feet or metres.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Our room

We had come to Nagano to see the snow monkeys. The path to see them was beautiful.

The monkeys hang out in their own onsen, mostly oblivious of the tourists
even though the tourists put their cameras within centimeters of them. Of course, when I did that, this little one decided to grab my lens!
They apparently also enjoy cleaning each other, digging in the snow, and pulling up ice to find things to eat under it.