We headed off from Hakuba to the town of Shibu Onsen, known for its thermal hot springs. We stayed in a traditional Raku, house with two hot springs in the residence. Staying in the Raku area of the town also granted you access to nine public Onsens (public bath houses known for their healing hot spring water). We found it interesting that the reserved Japanese culture embraces shared public bathing houses where nudity is required, the baths are separated by gender and traditionally no tattoos are allowed. Aiden was relieved that he and Clark were able to join Alastair in the Onsen at our Raku and thus did not have to face the public bathhouses, finding this onsen all to themselves. It was good for other guests as well, as the boys had lots of fun playing in a less than serene way. Sophie, Caroline, and I braved three very hot Onsens before returning to the hottest Onsen in our accommodation. A real highlight for the kids was visiting a shooting gallery where used corks guns to shoot at tiny targets to win dollar store prizes. The game seemed to go on forever as, they kept finding corks on the ground and using them, reported they though the owner was aware but when they returned after dinner the rules had changed. It was surprisingly difficult to find an evening meal in the town of Shibu Hanson, we lucked out, getting table space in a tiny Japanese diner. It was run by one man all by himself, he was serving tables and cooking all the food. He made an incredibly tasty meal for all of us, the marathon bibs on the wall made sense, when we watched his pace of work.
The following morning, we visited the Jigokudani Monkey Park. We had a gorgeous snowy hike through the woods to the Hot Springs, where the monkeys lounge. Along the way we saw a bubbling geyser and a male Macaque roaming alone. The Park is incredibly popular with tourist and there was some heavy duty elbowing to get good pictures of the monkeys. We have never seen so many huge telescopic photo lenses. The monkeys themselves were amazing. There were a few baby monkeys who were busy swimming and playing, we witnessed some bickering and fighting, as well as a lot of mutual grooming. Despite being Canadians, we were surprised at how cold we got well visiting the park.
