JIGOKUDANI YAEN KOEN — Snow Monkey Park

While staying in Yokohama, my friend and I took a side trip for two days and one night to Jigokudani Yaenkoen, or Snow Monkey Park. It was one of the things I absolutely did not want to miss when I visited Japan so, despite the distance we went anyway. In fact, Jigokudani combines three of my favorite things: small animals, winter and baths. Although monkeys can be found throughout Japan the monkeys at Jigokudani are famous for relaxing in the area's natural hot springs. These monkeys are the only mammals in the world besides humans known to immerse themselves in hot water for recreation.

According to the park's website, after noticing that groups of monkeys were sitting in small hot spring pools during the winter, villagers worked to enlarge these pools and, as the same monkey groups returned year after year, began supplementing the monkeys' diets with grains during the winter. The park was born out of this connection and the regularity of the monkey tribe's movements has allowed scientists to study these monkeys more in-depth. The species to which these monkeys belong is that of Japanese Macaques and they are known to travel in large family groups under one king or leader. However, the website makes clear that these are still wild animals and tourists should be wary, especially when photographing or getting near mothers and babies.

The monkey park is located in the mountains around Nagano, a city north-west of Tokyo. Nagano is now known for its many ski-resorts, but long before the ski resorts or monkey park were drawing tourists this area's hot springs were a destination for Japanese vacationers. So, while traveling to see the monkeys, we took the chance to fulfill one of my other wishes: to visit a Japanese onsen (natural hot spring bath).

The town we stayed in was called Shibu Onsen. It was within walking distance of the monkey park and had only three or four streets lined from end to end with ryokan (traditional Japanese inns). This was a real onsen town, completely organized around the tourist industry with a few farms here and there. In my research I learned that there is a whole culture surrounding ryokan, whose closest western equivalents are bed and breakfasts. When staying at a ryokan you pay per person per night with the price being higher or lower depending on the number of tatami mats in your room (aka the room size) and the level of your meals (most ryokan I looked at had 2 or 3 levels of meals that you could choose from).

Most places were full by the time we were making our reservations, but we managed to book a 9-mat room at Senshinkan Matsuya Ryokan. We opted for breakfast and dinner at the first level which was delicious anyway. Both meals involved several courses including sashimi, miso, a meat dish, an egg dish, pickled fruit, noodles, rice, tea and dessert. We were only staying for one night, but it was enough to enjoy the peaceful austerity of the ryokan. The hostess offered us tea when we first arrived, showed us around our rooms and showed us how to take the bus to the snow monkey park. When we returned that evening our host asked us what time we would like to have dinner, then at 6:30 sharp, we received a call from the dining room telling us our dinner was served. I'm not much of a foodie, but trying all the different flavors in the meal was fun and the ryokan itself was a beautiful, old building.

The view from our room at Senshinkan Matsuya Ryokan.

Our tatami room at Matsuya included a kotatsu — a table with a blanket placed around the edge and a heat source underneath to keep you toasty while you sit.

The monkey park was everything we had hoped, but to get to it we had to take a local bus a few blocks and then hike through the forest up to the park's entrance. We happened to be there during a mild spell (travel blogs had warned us about freezing toes) so it wasn't cold, especially once we got moving. However, the deep snow drifts testified to colder weather and made the narrow path slippery. The path going up the mountain was about 4 feet wide and when groups of tourists passed each other going up and down they edge around each other in single files. I saw quite a few tourists slip and fall in the snow and it did not look fun. We passed quite a few Korean and Japanese families. a large number of European 30-somethings and a few other Americans who were confirming negative stereotypes by drinking beer and smoking cigarettes on the way down the trail. In a nature preserve! I was so mad. But they were leaving so we just avoided eye-contact and passed by.

At the beginning of our hike up to the snow monkey park.

The mountain was covered in tall, thin pines.

The park itself was not large, but the sheer number of monkeys running around and their indifference to humans made it well worth the hike. As soon as we walked in monkeys were running by us, grooming themselves in the trees and digging through the snow. Walking down to the hot springs we found monkeys bathing, including many mothers and babies, and a large herd of humans taking pictures expensive cameras. The monkeys did not care at all and most just enjoyed the hot water lazily. The babies were more curious, investigating their visitors and playing on the railings — one even ran over my boots!

After our hike back and dinner I wanted to go check out the baths that give Shibu Onsen its name. Shibu Onsen is home to 9 public hot spring baths and multiple ryokans, each of which has its own private baths as well. Residents of the town and those staying at ryokan are given a bathhouse key which unlocks the doors of every bathhouse in the town. Each bath is said to be beneficial for a different ailment and visiting all of them in order is said to give the bather good luck. I didn't have much time after dinner so I didn't go to all the baths. I decided to skip the ones labeled skin diseases and stomach sickness just in case. To go to the baths I put on my cotton yukata from the ryokan and grabbed a towel and bathhouse key. At first I tried to use the wooden sandals (the kind with two wodden slats on the bottom), but after stumbling in them for a block I went back and traded them for regular flip-flops, making the host laugh.

Trying on my yukata.

A typical public bath — most of the buildings were old and very simple. It's the water and not the decor that brings people to the onsen town.

All along the streets you could hear the rush of moving water — the sound of pipes channeling hot spring water to the baths. It really felt like something out of Spirited Away, walking at dusk with the snow and the water everywhere. I stopped in about 5 of the baths, each of which had a women's side and a men's side. Inside the entry-way was a sort of locker room with wooden cubbies for bather's possessions. Here you change out of your yukata before moving into the bath area. The baths all varied in size, but were uniformly scalding. Some were made of stone, others wood and all had vents opening right into the night sky to let out steam. Most also had a tap channeling cold water to adjust the temperature of the tub, but I tended to find that they made little to no difference in the heat. There was just too much hot water. At one of my stops some older Japanese women showed me how to rinse off using the wooden buckets on the floor before entering each bath. Most of the baths were much deeper and larger than Korean baths, making them fun to splash around in. I finally went back to the room sleepy and warm. The next day was an early series of trains back to Tokyo and visiting more friends there. 

How many snow monkeys can you spot?

Okunoshima: Rabbit Island

The eastern coast of Japan is sprinkled with small islands, some no more than islets, stretching off into the Pacific. One such island is Okunoshima. With a handful of residents, Okunoshima was used, during WWII, as a poison gas manufacturing site and today the ruins of these factories are still marked as unsafe. The groundwater there contains high levels of arsenic and hikers must be careful where they walk. However, someone visiting the island today would notice none of these dark reminders at first glance. More noticeable are the palm trees, jewel-like sea and roaming herds of rabbits.

Featured in articles by The Gaurdian and BBC Okunoshima is now famous across the world as 'rabbit island.' An exact population count is currently unavailable but the small island is home to hundreds, if not thousands of the critters. So how did they come to live there?

One legend claims that the rabbits are descended from escaped lab rabbits, used to test the effects of poison gases during the war. However, records show that all those rabbits were killed when the factories shut down at the end of the war. Others say that pet rabbits were released on the island by school children during a field trip.

While their origin is unknown the reason the rabbit population has survived, and thrived, on Okunoshima does lead back to the poison gas factories during WWII. At that time all residents of the island, including all livestock and pets, were evacuated and after the war fear of contamination left Okunoshima uninhabited for many years. When the rabbits were introduced it was to essentially a private bunny paradise, free from all predators including human ones like cars and highways. Today, the island is inhabited by a few people, mostly supported by the tourist industry the bunnies now attract. In order to protect the rabbits, motor vehicles, except for those that carry guests to the single hotel, are prohibited.

We traveled to Okunoshima one sunny day from Kyoto, taking the express train to Osaka, then a slower train to Mihara and finally a tiny local train to Tadanoumi. (When we first told the Japan Rail representative where we wanted to go, he had no idea what we were saying. We had pronounced the station as Ta-da-noo-mi, when, as it turned out, we should have been saying Ta-da-no-oo-mi. When we finally got it right, he found it immediately.) I had thought riding the local trains in Japan would just be a hassle, but they turned out to have the best views of the countryside that we saw during our time. The high-speed trains need relatively straight and smooth tracks so they tend to cut straight through the country, but the local train trailed along the coast giving us gorgeous mountain/ocean views the whole way.

Tadanoumi turned out to be barely more than a station and a post office. We followed the other passengers who got off there around the corner to the ferry terminal where we bought round-trip ferry tickets and three paper bags of bunny chow. The ferry was more of an oversize speed boat, but the trip only took 10-15 minutes.

Since we were stopping at the island on our way to Hiroshima we had all our luggage with us. This was convenient, since it is a bit of a trek to get there, but caused some trouble since the storage lockers were only big enough for a small to medium suitcase. My friend's small roller-bag was just a twinge too large and the hotel wouldn't watch it for us so we had to carry it the whole time. This was fine since we were there to see the rabbits rather than serious hiking, but if you do want to be more mobile I suggest leaving your luggage elsewhere.

After that we walked along the beach and played with the rabbits. It was winter and while there were still many rabbits around we didn't encounter the mobs I had seen in some youtube videos. Still, the rabbits were adorable and very curious. We played with them for around two hours until it began to rain and everyone, furry or otherwise, ran for cover.

En-route to Tadanoumi 

Bunny play-time

No sense of personal space...

Okunoshima's lone hotel, seems a bit spooky to me...

Well, hello there

Mealtime for Peter Rabbit

Goodbye bunnies!

TAKE 2

Back in Korea I’ve moved into a new apartment and will start my teaching duties today. It’s been extremely busy since arriving in Korea, staying at Jungwon University to meet the new ETAs and yesterday traveling to Daegu with my co-teacher and principal. Just dashing out a quick note to say I’m back. I renewed my Fulbright grant at Dong-do Middle School, a highly ranked middle school in Daegu. Moving into a new apartment is harder than I remembered. Shopping on my own after getting the apartment code I was overwhelmed by the number of things needed to set up a life: bedding, dishes, cooking utensils (so many!). I didn’t even buy food in the end because I had exhausted myself agonizing over frying pans and the high prices of cotton bed sheets. 

Trials of living alone aside I have felt and feel almost ecstatic to be back in Korea and especially to be back in Korea with these people. This weekend I was so impressed and warmed by my class of renewees and the new ETAs. I was reminded in Goesan (the small town where orientation takes place) how breathtaking Korea is. It has been a raining, misty kind of week here. Monsoon season is supposed to be over, but no one told the weather. Walking outside the university we could watch as moisture seeped up from the ground and met the wetness in the sky. We watched the clouds get caught in the cups of mountains, lingering and growing to cover the entire valley in fog. Coming to Daegu, about a two and a half hour drive, we drove through three separate rain clouds, each one lasting only a few minutes. My co-teacher and principal both seem like kind people. On the way back we stopped at a roadside stand to by steamed corn, famous in the area. I am filled with the feeling that I am in the place where I should be.

HANOI: Part II

Not too much has happened the last few weeks. My Korean class at the local English-language church ended and then this last weekend I went up to Seoul for our Infusion magazine meeting. Infusion is the literary magazine published by Fulbright Korea. I have been working as a staff editor for the magazine since this fall. Now my students are taking their midterm exams so I have a bit more free time. I want to take advantage of this lull to post the rest of my pictures from winter break and the gorgeous Vietnamese scenery.

Outside of Hanoi we took a ferry around Halong Bay, famous for its numerous rocky projections.

Throughout the bay are floating fishing villages. We stopped at one to rent kayaks and paddle around.

#kayakselfie

Another day we traveled a little north of Hanoi to an old capital of Vietnam. The area is described as the 'dry Halong bay' because it contains the same rocky formations.

Entrance to an old temple. This temple was unique in having been built entirely by the local population without regulation or support from any government or ruler.

Later in the day, at a different site, we rode row boats along the river.

I'm sure a large part of the local income comes from this tourism. The scenery was beautiful, but it was uncomfortable being rowed around by a woman older than my mother. 

In the last moments of our day we went bicycling  around the fields.

WHAT I'VE BEEN GIVEN

Peeking out from behind the trees is my school, Shinpyeong Middle School. Both this woman with her fields, and my school are about a five minute walk from my host home.

Sunday I took a walk through the woods behind my middle school. The middle school sits at the top of a hill — the highest point in the neighborhood — and just above it sits the wood. A narrow dirt path and steep stairs made of logs and earth meander across the area, each curve harboring a small field or garden. I haven't been in Gumi long, but this is one of the things I know I love: that at any moment urban apartments may give way to farms and you can taste the difference in the air. Above my middle school a farmer is growing pumpkins, red peppers and morning glories, the fields themselves clinging dangerously to the hill.

I was walking here when I saw an insect — something long and scurrying — and I wondered what it was called, whether I could get a better look, maybe take a picture if it was interesting. And as I thought this my second thought was that I ought to thank my uncle, an entomologist, for giving me this interest.

My life so far has been rich with engaged and interested people who have given me so much to think about.

My grandparents on either side showed me that learning is not something stationary, but is happening to us at every moment if we only allow it. They taught me to learn from books and then that books come in many forms — sometimes they look like paper, other times they can be found in fossils or in a single word.

My parents showed me that nature is everywhere you look. They taught me to look at the tree and to ask its name, but also to look at the tree and see its shape and to know the name of the shape that belongs to just that tree.

I think how different my world would be if I were not looking at it, were not reading it through the eyes of my friends and family. Without them, these woods would be much emptier. I am so grateful.

These thoughts come as I am struggling with a difficult life decision. This last week I had several epiphanies. The first was when I realized late one evening that, while I would love to be a professor, there is so much more to consider before going to graduate school. The more I read about graduate school right now the riskier it appears, and while I value finding satisfaction in my work, there are other occupations where I could find that same satisfaction. The second occurred as I was leaving my school Friday afternoon and some students ran yelling past. I realized then that I love my students. I was afraid that I might never have that realization, but I did and I do.

Now, these two epiphanies aren’t necessarily related, but they could be. Both realizations are part of my learning process this year, the stress being on process — something that is intrinsically moving and changing.

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night I never knew I liked the night pitch-black sparks fly from the engine I didn't know I loved sparks I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15930#sthash.f7xpWePR.dpuf

I used to wonder how teachers could find it in them to care about all their students, even — especially — the troublemakers. How could teachers persistently wish for each and every student to succeed? Yet in becoming a teacher I have learned that teachers are always watching. I see my students all the time in and out of class. They are so active, so loud, and yet so often lost in themselves. They're just kids. I want them all to succeed, even — and especially — the ones that cause trouble. I know their behavior isn't about me, but about something they're going through.

It's good to know — as I'm trying to sift through my values and find out where they will lead — that I can still discover things that I care about, things that maybe I didn't expect.

THE WAY BACK

The Korean landscape is beautiful, like something out of a pre-raphaelite painting. Besides mountains and rich vegetation, I've seen woodpeckers so small when flying that I almost thought I was watching a large moth until it landed on a tree, and beetles which measured with their tusks were as long as my index finger. Maybe I will have to practice my nature photography.