Nov 23 2007, Yudanaka Onsen (湯田中温泉)

I am now writing a blog post about my trip that happened more than one and half a year ago.. I know it's already late, but it's still better than never, so I decided to post it before it fades away from my memory.


Me staring at monkeys

Randy, Junko and I went to Yudanaka Onsen (湯田中温泉) on November 23, 2007. Yudanaka Onsen is famous for monkey bath - there you can see monkeys taking bath in hot springs. So hot springs are not human-dominated resorts; monkeys also enjoy them. :) When I was young I always saw Japanese monkeys taking baths as if humans are taking baths, in TV, and this was something I really wanted to see in Japan. So, I went to Yudanaka onsen located near Nagano, with Randy and Junko.



We went to Nagano by Shinkansen first, looked around the city a bit.


Then we went to our first destination, Yudanaka Onsen, the monkey bath resort.



There were tons of monkeys..



Even more monkeys...


...and they are making more monkeys...


Shit..! Don't take pictures..!

After monkey onsen, we went to an actual onsen, called Kusatsu onsen (草津温泉). Throughout the entire year of my stay in Japan, I've never seen any better onsen than this. If you want to experience the authentic outdoor Japanese onsen, this is the place to go.



Then on the way, we stopped by a lava place to enjoy sightseeing.



Then we came back to Tokyo.


Night of Tokyo, from Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (東京都庁舎).

It was a good trip, and I am very glad I finally wrote a blog post about this trip..!