Snow monkeys!!

Today we went north into the Mountains to see the snow monkeys that hang out in hot springs. It was absoltely amazing! We took about a 40 minute train ride from Suzaka, to another town where we took a bus and then hiked up to the springs for about 30 minutes. There were so many monkeys at the park and they didn't seem to mind that there were people around at all. One chased another and ran into my leg (which was fine but I finally did some laundry last night and now my pants are really muddy). I think I took about a million pictures. There was a hot spring that they soaked in and groomed each other and just chilled out. They seemed just like humans, it was incredible (and the babies are wonderfully adorable) - I think I could have stayed there for hours and just watched them play. However, we were hungry so we found a little soba place that I think was just an extension of someone's house... but it was good. Tonight is our last night as our little group here are Nagata's. I've really enjoyed having these other 3 wwoofers here and exploring this area with them. Once we finished the harvest our next job was to remove all the little sapplings growing next to the big apple trees using crowbars... not always an easy task. After a while not only does one get pretty sore, but also extremely bored. A few days ago the 6 of us ended up making up a game where you flip and throw your crowbar at a piece of styrofoam, trying to hit the styrofaom and have the crowbar land standing up in the ground.... very fun. We also played a little apple/crowbar baseball (resulting in a face covered in apple juice). Tomorrow we are going to toyko just for the day to get our Indian visas (so that we can pick them up in a few weeks when we go back through) and run another few errands. We are going to keep out huge backpacks on all day and try to make it Kyoto tomorrow night.... it is going to be a verrrry long day. Going to try to put up some pictures tonight. Love to all!