Monkey Massage Weekend has been in the works for a long time. The concept arose when a Himeji-dwelling ALT friend asked what there was to do in Shiso. He wasn’t trying to be a jerk, he really wanted to know. So I told him we had a sweet monkey park (to which I’d never been). At some point he was talking about a really bad massage he'd got, and I assured him that the massage lady I saw in Shiso was much better than he’d experienced in his city. He suggested that one of these days, we make a venture out of it, and enjoy a few of the many things Shiso has to offer.
It’s not easy for people living in actual cities to get out to Shiso, and I appreciate that. Most cities have trains, but Shiso does not. Which means you have to take a (pretty expensive) bus out here, then maybe another one to wherever in town you want to go.
After failing to execute monkey/massage weekend through the summer, we decided on November 14th. I was later invited by my principal to a festival up in Somegochi (one of my favorite places), so it was added to the day’s itinerary.
It was a cool, hazy morning high up the Some valley when we hit the festival. There was shishinabe (wild boar stew):
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Mochi-makin' (pounding rice into a sort of sticky awesomeness):
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and performances by a group of basically all the girl students at my small elementary school:
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For not being associated to monkeys, nor massages, this festival was a pretty sweet addition to monkey massage weekend.
The monkey park is an adjunct to a temple somewhere on the way to Chikusa. Armed with no more knowledge than basically that, we did manage to find the place. It's pretty well signed. I'll share some of our fun photos, but as usual, if you click the link and follow it back to the album, there's a whole slew of awesome there for you to peruse.
First, although you've seen it all by now, remember that this is backwards blogging, so I hadn't been to Momiji-Yama yet, nor Kyoto. That said, the fall color at monkey park that day was beautiful!
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The park itself appeared as if out of nothing amongst the trees. There is no compelling force keeping the monkeys there, other than the presence of provided food and shelter, which are pretty compelling.
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I like this one because if you look close, you can see the little one's mouth open in protest as its mother gives it a good face-scrubbin':
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That one is part of a whole washing-the-baby-monkey series which I enjoy quite a lot.
Other fun activities include feeding the monkeys:
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This one is just adorable:
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This seemed wildly appropriate on Monkey Massage Weekend, as it appears the monkeys are massaging (grooming) one another:
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Then. It was feeding time. At which point more hilarity ensued than I can describe. So please enjoy my videos.
First, a general pan, and the spotting of the Monkey King (who was given his own food pile by the park keeper):
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More little monkeys stole food from the big guy, until one tiny monkey got thrown by its head over the edge of that little wall you see there. It was incredible.
We hoped for an encore.. can you blame us?
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I was refocusing my camera so I just barely caught---
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There aren't photos of the massage, that would just have been awkward. In summary, come to Shiso, it's pretty awesome.
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