Santa Monkey Cam
I'm in Nagano right now. Last night we stayed at the Jigokudani Onsen, and this morning we visited the Hell Valley Monkey Park. Through some strange coincidence (and without any prior knowledge or coordination) peglegpete happened to be watching the live monkey cam at the same moment and grabbed these two shots:
The onsen (natural hot spring bath) at Jigokudani is really fantastic. They've got natural hot water baths, they serve a traditional Japanese breakfast/lunch/dinner (included in the ~11,000¥ price), and the place is absolutely crawling with monkeys. We woke up to the sound of monkeys scampering over our roof. (They like to sit on the hot water pipes.) You can take a nice relaxing natural sulfur bath before breakfast in the morning with the added bonus of knowing that if you open the door there's probably going to be a monkey outside.
The onsen (natural hot spring bath) at Jigokudani is really fantastic. They've got natural hot water baths, they serve a traditional Japanese breakfast/lunch/dinner (included in the ~11,000¥ price), and the place is absolutely crawling with monkeys. We woke up to the sound of monkeys scampering over our roof. (They like to sit on the hot water pipes.) You can take a nice relaxing natural sulfur bath before breakfast in the morning with the added bonus of knowing that if you open the door there's probably going to be a monkey outside.