A full day of events in Tokyo and then a last minute decision to go to the mountains outside Nagano. Beautiful mountains, lots of hot springs, monkeys and hiking. Great trip. Left Tokyo at 5:30 after a very long and interesting day. The best session yet was this morning. There was a survivor of Hiroshima who was nothing short of incredible. There were also two second generation survivors. Little did I know there was a tremendous stigma attached to those whose parents survived. They were often unable to marry and get good jobs. A power 2 hours of interesting insight. A memory I will not soon forget. Half of the 30 or so people in the room were not only brought to tears, they were sobbing. Powerful.
We then had and introduction performance from a famous Kabuki theatre performer. It was interesting and informative, but anything was a let down following the previous speakers.
I was originally planning a kayak session on a Japan river for my days off, but it did not come together so I had to make some quick changes of plans. At noon I was thinking of alternatives. I was looking for traveling companions. At three o'clock I had no idea what I was going to do, but by four I decided to head to an area outside of the 1998 winter olympics town of Nagano. It was a famous hotsprings town with hiking, hotsprings and snow monkeys. The only other person who had the interest and gumption (most people were reluctant to go anywhere... wimps) was Sara House, who started at Redmond after I left. Oddly enough she and I could share stories about all the students, staff and shenanigans of life at Redmond High School. Considering she knew Fred VonSeggern and he "prepped" her to meet me I knew we would get along. After a quick decision we hit the road at 5:30 and jump the bullet train to the mountains outside of Nagano. The people I met along the way convinced me the Japanese were some of the most friendly people I had ever met in any of my travels. So many people went out of their way to help it was crazy. One person decided to show us the way to the youth hostel and said it was "on the way" but clearly nothing this far out in the middle of no where is not on the way. Another ran after us to make sure we knew how to get to the proper train. The hostel owner decided to drive us up the moutnain to get the good hiking spots, and gave us a personal introduction to the archery of the samurai. He was not only the owner of a traditional Japanese youth hostel, he was a master sensai (teacher) of the art of archery. He was pretty impressive.
As reluctant as I am towards monkeys, (nightmares of finding monkeys under my bed... long story but frightening) to see the famous wild snow monkeys of Japan was pretty interesting. I have a feeling the winter months are the real time to truly observe them in their element, but it was still pretty interesting to see a horde of wild monkeys just hanging out in some beautiful hot springs tucked in the mountains.
Kids in the town of Shibu. Each kids carries a small leather rucksack that is part of their school univformIn this small town (which was small enough it did not have a single place to eat) had 9 public hot srpings / tubs and countless of private tubs. Very cool place. 
Youth Hostel owner / Master of the samurai bow. He could nail a target with a 2 meter long bow at 60 meters (180+ feet!!!). Don't mess with the samurai
After some "tough" hiking around Shibu and hot foot bath is just what the Japanese order. As I mentioned, the Japanese were so kind a couple of locals saw us looking at the hot springs and decided they needed to show the Americans how to do it.
Not a big fan of monkeys, but this was pretty darn cool. I have to admit they did a lot to develop an affection toward simians.
