Wendy Welch | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

Tokyo is the safest city in the world. The Jigokudani monkey park, not so much. International tourists come from all over the world, and once they realize that from Nagaro station you have to get a specific and highly-sought-after bus, and once you get off that bus it’s a 2 mile walk straight up an incline, they get pissy. You’re going to hear a lot of swear words in a multiplicity of languages and people stop moving aside on the path.

Especially in winter, because that path is covered in snow and ice. Sweetest thing we saw on the path was a tall elderly man and his short wife, looking and speaking Nordic. The tiny handrail on the turning slope didn’t reach this guy’s knees, but he was trying to use it because they were both clearly terrified.

Below them a group of Middle-Eastern-looking men spoke to each other, turned, and two of them went back up that treacherous slope and said one English word: Sir. And each held out a hand to him.

They got him down. We got up, although we had a bad moment when we thought we were going to have to carry our entire luggage up the whole way. Turns out you can pay to leave luggage at the information booth, but the little girl working there was not forthcoming with this info. It is hard to tell ages on face types one doesn’t see everyday, but I put her below 15 for sure. And bored out of her mind. But she saved our lives when she agreed to watch our bags for 500 yen.

Up we went, and as we ascended I looked at the faces of those descending. They looked happy.

“We’re gonna see monkeys,” I said to Amelia.

She half-grunted, half-gasped. We were on a steep part.

Like the giant Buddha, the monkeys were on Amelia’s bucket list, and halfway up the vertical two miles, I believe she may have been regretting some life choices. But there we were.

In the snow and ice I kept seeing tiny yellow circles. I am one of those weirdos who picks things up, but not until I’m sure what they are. At the bottom of the hill, a bunch of Romanians were selling crampons, plastic tie-ins to cover tennis shoes and let you dig into the snow. The little yellow circles were the tops of the embedded studs from those high-quality products we had decided not to buy.

We saw our first monkey even before we got to the park. We saw our second monkey 12 seconds later.

“No matter what, Amelia, we did it! We saw monkeys!” I shouted in jubilation.

“Ufffmopht,” Amelia said, gripping the hand rail. We were at the top.

We saw monkeys. Big grandfather monkeys, teenage monkeys, baby monkeys, mama monkeys with babies on their backs. There were roughly three people for every monkey, and some of them had massive camera lenses. I got tired of taking photos of monkeys sitting under these lenses while people trained them on far off slopes. I laughed at one guy who was photographing a monkey sitting coquettishly on a stone in the hot steam of the spring, while next to him another monkey touched the pompom on his hat. Turning from this scene, I nearly tripped on a monkey crossing the bridge behind me.

“Sorry,” I muttered, but that little guy only spoke Japanese.

We had our fill over an hour and a half. Monkeys are cool. Monkeys are cute. They came running when a staff member went out with a bucket of treats and attracted them to the hot spring where 400 photographers waited. It was like watching the cows come in.

Amelia and I decided not to go to the human onsen there. Sharing human water is one thing, but with monkeys is another. We stopped at an inn where a kindly elderly man would make us hot cocoa for 500 yen. The sign said his family had been running the place for 9 generations.

We stepped across the breezeway, took off our shoes, and sat down in the scenic dining room hanging off the back of the mountain. I got out the apples, cheese, and crackers we had brought for lunch, and Amelia said, “I think we have to go back across to get the cocoa.”
Popping on my shoes, I crossed the breezeway and the kindly man said “No no I bring.”

At the entryway, I took off my shoes, slid the door open and closed–and it flew out of my hand.

A rather portly monkey entered. Astonished I turned and blocked her way toward our table. We made eye contact, something all the signs tell you not to do. I said, in my most reasonable storyteller talking to kindergartners voice, “You need to leave now.” The monkey looked me in the eye. I stomped my foot, and the monkey cocked her head at me. The thought bubble above her head said, “Nuisance, not threat.”

The thought bubble above my head was just forming, in the shape of a headline: first stupid tourist death reported at monkey park in showdown over table space at local diner.

The monkey sidestepped me with casual disdain and headed for Amelia, who had been filming me coming in but dropped her phone when she saw the monkey. I have a picture seared in my mind of Amelia, recoiling backwards against the dining room windows, as the monkey reached our table in two mighty bounds, sat down atop it, and picked up a package of crackers.

I reached the table in three steps. “Those are plastic! You’ll hurt yourself!” I said to the monkey, reaching for the crackers.

She smacked me. Like a mother might do a fractious toddler. Not harm, not intent to be mean, just “stop that.” Then she picked up one of our apples and bit into it, picked the other one up in her hand, and with this bounty exited the room in three leaps.

I felt a pang of loss. They had been very good apples and I only got one bite. From the only other family in the room, a woman in pink hijab said, in a tone I didn’t consider entirely friendly, “That’s why they tell you to close the door.”

I glared at her. She had a toddler smaller than the monkey, so likely she was in full tiger mama mode, but I swallowed my retort: They don’t tell you the part where monkeys rip them out of your hands, madam. Those little bastards are strong.

Amelia and I made do with cheese and the remaining crackers, plus the delicious cocoa the man brought a moment later. When we exited the inn, that same monkey was sitting outside, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Just waiting.

I like to picture her entering her home with the apples: Get out the fruit knives, Bert! Lunch is ready!

Alternatively, she went straight round the back to the kitchen of the inn, where the kindly old man gave her 200 yen for the apples and put dumplings on the menu.

We inched our way downhill. The only thing worse than uphill ice is downhill ice. We slid on one slope but never fell. At the bottom that same bored child was watching the shop full of monkey trinkets and the tourists with equal disdain.

That’s her, officer. What do you mean, she has immunity?

On impulse, I typed into google translate: Thank you. We had a lovely day and would not have made it if we had to carry our luggage. You probably have souvenir money from America, but if not, would you like some?

She stared at the phone, then her eyes lit up as she looked at me. Honestly, I don’t think it was the offer of an American dollar. It was that someone saw her.

She brought my bags, I gave her the dollar, explained it was roughly 100 yen (more like 150 but I can’t say 150 in Japanese) and she literally squealed as she beamed. As people looked around–maybe seeing her for the first time–she tucked it into her pocket. We bowed to each other, Amelia got her son a t-shirt, and off we went, replete with adventure.

I hadn’t seen the thieving monkey lurking by the door, but I had seen the bored teen who just needed a boost. And if you are robbed, remember: give something away afterward and you will feel better.

Never forget the journey can be as beautiful as the destination. Even on a scary slope.

Kenrokuan Gardens are in Kanazawa, and they are quite something. I enjoyed them, but Amelia was having a mystical experience. After her first trip to Japan a couple of years ago, she built a Shinto garden at her Airbnb–which is her maternal grandmother’s old house, modernized for visitors–and we do believe she has the only Tori gate and Inari shrine in Elk Creek, Virginia. (Inari is the white fox who guards rice, and therefore prosperity and possibility.)

A kind couple at the bewildering array of bus stops at Kanazawa station helped us to the right bus and were very sweet in helping us get off it properly, as they were headed to the gardens themselves. The gardens are free if you’re over 65, so Amelia’s happy day started early. I had to pay 500 yen (which is a little over $3).

Plum trees blossom in snow. I did not know this until I saw them with my own phone camera! The gardens are famous for that era of rapid transition in Japan, when feudal lords (samurai) were on the way out and modern Japan as a power to be reckoned with in manufacturing and goods was hoving into view.

Of course, the samurai didn’t like this, and many of them were wiped out around the same time as the American Civil War in an ill-fated rebellion. It was shortly after this that samurai were forbidden to carry swords as part of their daily attire. (I am ignoring the implications to open carry in my home commonwealth of Virginia and moving on, thank you.)

The gardens are named Roku because of Japan’s six prized landscaping elements incorporated in their design: open spaces, panoramic views, solitude options, art made by humans, ancientness, and lots of water features. One of Japan’s oldest trees (a pine) sits in the garden. Amelia’s aunt sat on the tree seventy years ago to take her bridal picture, but it’s roped off now. One too many tourists, probably.

Amelia walked around in a daze, every turn and corner a new epiphany. I am a cheerful but not accomplished gardener, so I walked around going “Oh, pretty” and “I wonder if this is edible or medicinal.” (Bad gardeners make good foragers.)

And of course we had to do the winter tea experience, because it was cute. This country invented cute. They do cute with elegance, cute with glitter, cute with dignity, cute with gravitas. Warning to visitors: DO NOT LAUGH when you see a businessman in a black suit and black cashmere coat carrying a black backpack with a dangling fuzzy bunny onto a train. This was our international incident #17 or so, we think. We’ve lost count.

Amelia sat in blissful silence, munching her bean paste snowman, matcha chocolate, and almond lantern cookie in deep contemplation. She’s planning her garden back home. I bit the head of my snowman and watched a fat raven work the crowd outside the window.

After the gardens we investigated the reconstructed castle walls, then wandered through town. The high tea Japanese style was charming, but not entirely filling, so we stopped at what can only be described as a Japanese tapas bar.

The owner was a very sweet woman, and I had an assortment of six dishes plus hot red wine. (That is a big thing here and one of the cultural imports I will be making at home. Hot red wine is delicious, not mulled, just heated.)

She had a small display of handmade jewelry all in the same pattern, a family crest. Her sister makes them. Amelia and I treated ourselves to earrings, and then headed for a neighborhood outdoor onsen. These communal baths use volcanic hot water with a lot of natural minerals in it, and they are awesome. International incident #18, I left my glasses in the washing room, so had to reenter it after the onsen, with my sweatshirt on. You don’t wear street clothes into the bathing area.

The onsen also shows something kind of gritty about human divides. In America, many Americans will avoid direct contact with Mexicans unthinkingly, or make assumptions about their cleanliness and such without overtly expressing why they decide not to sit there, eat that, talk to him or her.

In the onsens we have visited, if we go to the inside tub, the Japanese women who come in after us go to the outside, and vice versa. Once an older woman shot us a suspicious look and left. By contrast, at my first ever onsen, the only woman there spoke fluent English and welcomed me to the experience when she discovered this was my inaugural immersion.

The neighborhood onsen was sublime. The gardens were spiritual. So what better ending to such a meaningful day could there be than an Irish pub in the heart of Kanazawa at happy hour? Amelia had a curry pizza. I had sausages. The Olympics were on a massive screen TV, showing the Asian figure skaters. A good time was had by all.