Day 10 and 11: Yudanaka

Believe it or not we really did intend to relax on our trip. We made another onsen stop, this time in Yudanaka. The ryokan we stayed at is older than the United States, having been started some 400 years ago and in its sixteenth generation of operation.

In addition to the six baths in the ryokan—outdoor, indoor, stone, tile, hot, cool, and the biggest hinoki tub I've ever been in), we were handed a hefty iron key that would unlock the doors to the nine baths along Shibu street.

And our room had a private outdoor bath, which we used as part of a methodical process to wrinkle our fingers and toes.

This may sound absolutely crazy, but we spent the entire day doing nothing but taking baths. It was heavenly.

Walking through the narrow, quiet streets of Yudanaka felt so far removed from Japan's crazy cities.

But we weren't in Yudanaka just to turn ourselves into prunes.

No, we were also there for…

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Monkeys!

The area is known in part for Jigokudani ("Hell's Valley", which is the most badass name for a park ever) and the natural hot springs where Japanese Macaques often gather. In the winter they climb out of the snowy forest to bathe in the hot springs. In the summer they come around because they get fed by the park staff.

When we stayed at K's House in Hakuba we got to know the couple that ran the place, Megumi and Toshi. While Megumi was giving us a ride to the train station she told us that she wanted to go to Jigokudani, but Toshi doesn't like monkeys.

For some reason this became our catchphrase for the rest of the trip. All we had to do was add "but Toshi doesn't like monkeys" to any sentence and we started giggling to ourselves.

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