Snow Monkeys and onsen boiled eggs

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Probably one of the biggest highlights of my holiday was the trip on Christmas Day to see the Snow Monkey's in Jigokudani yaenkoen.

We arrived in Yudanaka Onsen in northen Nagano on 24 Demember, via the Snow monkey express train. We'd booked into a lovely Ryokan guesthouse, Shimaya , run by the sweetest and most helpful couple imaginable. They dropped us off at the Monkey park Christmas morning. That night there had been a deep snowfall, but it was a crisp sunny day, perfect for exploring and not too cold. It took about 40 minutes to trek through the forest path to the onsen where the monkeys live. We got there about midday, so it was already pretty busy with tourists. Over the years the monkeys have become accusomed to being watched, so they don't bat an eyelid at people around them taking photos. You can't feed them, so they really aren't interested in you - they just get on with enjoying their spar and try their best to ignore the intruders gawping at them. It really was amazing to get so close to these beautiful creatures.

In the afternoon we walked back from the park to Shibu-onsen, the next town along from where we were staying. Shibu is a beautiful small town of cobbled streets and traditional wooden buildings, famous for having the most number of onsens in one small stretch (over nine in the space of a few blocks). You see people wandering down the street in bathrobes and slippers, doing an onsen to onsen crawl. We didn't get time to try any of these onsens, but we managed to sample the free boiled eggs outside one - cooking in the steaming water.

We didn't realise that by 2pm all the local restaurants would be closed as it was a Sunday, so our Christmas lunch came from the local convenience store. I had some Odon soup, and Dave had take out fried chicken and chips. That afternoon we were taken to a lovely onsen hotel up in the mountains, were we had the use of our own private onsen, with mountain views. It was lovely relaxing in the hot water, sipping cold sake and watching the lights come out in the towns below, with the snow coming down around us.

That evening we'd booked for a special meal back at our Ryokan, so we had a delicious traditional Japanese spread. We even dressed in the traditional yukata outfits they'd left in our room for us. The food was delicious - and probably the most unusual Christmas dinner I've ever eaten.

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