Nagano Snow Monkeys

If you watched the Olympics and saw the commercial with the snow monkeys...this is it! If you didn't get to see it click here to watch it. It's in Nagano, Japan about 4 hours north of where we live.

Shane and I took the kids up there the first weekend in February and it was snowing like crazy. Thanks to some great neighbors who had lots of snow gear we were all bundled up and prepared (80% of the people on the bus tour were just in jeans and coats).

It was a 30 minute hike up the mountain to get to the monkeys (with kids it took more like 45 minutes).

Luckily a friend let us borrow their sleds. We pulled the kids up the mountain and back - it was quite the workout, but way better than carrying them the whole time.

This was Tia in the 5 minutes that she actually liked the sled ride...she had a REALLY rough time with the cold, but at least it gave me a chance to hold and cuddle her for the following 2 hours on the bus ride home while she slept. She usually doesn't like to be held or cuddled, so I was in heaven.

This little dude was just chillin' outside the little shack where people could take safety from the snow and warm up a little.

I couldn't believe how close they would let us get to them. A couple of times WE had to move off of the path so that the monkeys wouldn't run into us. It was crazy!

All the little dots that look like rocks under the bridge and down the hill are more monkeys. There were TONS of them everywhere.

We all wished we could jump in those hot springs with the monkeys and warm up ourselves.

Here's a little video I took:

Even though it was freezing cold, and the ride home took us 7 hours instead of 4 (because the blizzard shut down all of the freeways) we are so glad we went. The experience was worth it. We will definitely go again...but hopefully not during another blizzard :)!