Japan is a top winter sports destination, and Nagano was its host city for the 1998 Winter Olympics which I remember fairly well. We took the Shinkansen Bullet Train from Tokyo to Nagano and did some exploring around this winter-sports hub.
Nagano is famous for its vicinity to hot springs and for its little tribe of Snow Monkeys that have adopted an outdoor Onsen as their home. It’s a beautiful walk up to the Snow Monkey park and they’re so cute all sitting around here having a bath. Plenty of monkey business here!
They are very accustomed to humans being around, and many of them were weaving amongst the crowds of tourists to get back to the water or just to go about their business. It’s hilarious there is even a webcam where you can observe the monkeys online as they sit around in their Onsen all day. What a life!
Naturally the point of heading to Nagano is as a gateway to the amazing ski resorts here in the Japanese Alps. Tune in next time to see where we land!