Last weekend a few friends and I went on a three hour road trip to our neighbouring prefecture Nagano to visit the Jigokudani Monkey Park. This national park is famous for the wild Japanese Macaques that migrate and forage there in the winter months. They love the warmth of the natural onsen (hot spring) and they roam around the park looking for food and just being ridiculously cute! Tons of tourists flock to the park every year so the monkeys are unfazed by our presence. You can walk alongside them and get right beside them for pictures and they just carry on hanging out or playing in the snow. There are strict park rules that you are not allowed to feed them, touch them, or look at them in the eyes. The last one is particularly important because they will attack if you dare stare them down. I found it really difficult to avert my gaze from theirs. They have very human features and when you look at them it seems instinctual to look at them in the eyes, but if they catch you they are super quick to screech and swipe at you. Otherwise they are tame and ambivalent to our presence. I remember in my undergrad I took a few primatalogy classes and they were by far my favourite electives. We watched videos of Japanese macaques bathing in the onsen, and learned about how they are matrilineal and known for being particularly clever . I knew I had to see them one day. I can cross this off my bucket list! It was one of those quintessential Japan moments when I knew I was experiencing something that I could only do in Japan. I was in awe of how lively and playful the monkeys were and I so badly wanted to take one home. It was such a beautiful thing to see them in a natural but protected environment. The world is getting smaller and natural spaces are being encroached upon by developing nations and influxes of human populations so although there were a lot of tourists it was still a safe sanctuary for the monkeys and that was a wonderful thing to see.
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