Gifu Prefecture & Nagano Snow Monkeys!

We rented a car for the weekend, and decided to head north to the prefecture of Gifu on Satuday. Here, we checked out the Gifu castle and also the Shouhou-ji Temple.

Gifu-jo Castle stands at the top of a mountain, and the only access to the top is by cable car. Despite the rain and poor weather, we took the cable car to the top to check out the castle. I'm sure on a clear day, the views would have been spectacular! Unfortunately because of the rain and fog, we couldn't see anything. Inside the castle was a little disappointing as well. It's very small, and it's a modern reconstruction of the original. Inside is a museum, with not much to see.

Gifu-jo Castle

Nicole inside the castle museum.

After the castle, we headed a short ways to the temple of Shouhou-ji. The main attraction at this temple is the paper-mache Daibutsu (buddha), which stands nearly 14 meters tall and is said to have been fashioned over 38 years using about a ton of paper Sutras. The central pillar of this buddha was constructed with ginkgo tree wood. Its framework was built from various types of wood while the body was knitted together from many types of bamboo material. The surface of the buddha was hardened with clay and covered with many great Buddhist scriptures. As a final process, lacquer was applied many times and then plastered with golden leaves. Because priests and many others prayed for people's happiness by using buddhist sutra scriptures, placing many scriptures onto the body of the buddha was very important in its construction.

Giant buddha, hard to believe it's made with paper mache.

Small statues go all the way around the temple.

On Sunday, we headed about 4 hours north to Nagano to see the Japanese snow monkeys. Here there is an onsen (hot spring) village nestled in the mountains, home to about 200 Japanese macaques who live in and around the onsen baths. The monkeys and their hot tub can be found at a park called Jigokudani Yaen-koen. The most popular time to see the monkeys is in the winter, when many of them are bathing in the onsen. However, the park is open year-round, and it's possible to see quite a few anytime of the year. They are accustomed to humans, and can be observed from very close.

We were a little nervous that we would drive all the way there and then not see any monkeys. But I'm happy to report that we had good luck seeing tons of monkeys everywhere! I LOVED this experience! Next time, we'll go in the winter and see them in action in the snow.

the onsen

relaxing in the hot spring

we saw quite a few baby monkeys :)

getting very close!

what a great day!