The onsen town of Kusatsu has a central spring which supplies all of the tien's Onsens with sulphurous water that is so acidic it tastes like lemon juice. It is said to have healing properties, and can heal anything except a broken heart! I tried it out on my fly bites -and guess what? -They dried up!
This chute delivers thousands of liters per hour. It is in the centre of the town and the whole town smells of sulphur.
Those white spots are the steam vents and you can see the rim of the crater. We did not day though because of a little anxiety, but the road onwards was certainly spectacular with rows and rows of mountain ranges and a pass at 2172m.
That's the nipple in the baby's mouth.
This little fella was swimming and swimming around in the pool. Half of the time he was underwater but didn't seem to be in any distress.
They cuddle together to keep warm and indulge in some friendly flea hunting.
This chute delivers thousands of liters per hour. It is in the centre of the town and the whole town smells of sulphur.
We wanted to go from there to the rim of the nearby volcano (Mt Shirane-San), but were told that volcano is on eruption alert and trips to the rim are cancelled! Never the less we took the road which goes within a few kms of the rim.... (Joe says he is a type A personality - risk taker- I had another descriptive term, but I did agree to it).
Those white spots are the steam vents and you can see the rim of the crater. We did not day though because of a little anxiety, but the road onwards was certainly spectacular with rows and rows of mountain ranges and a pass at 2172m.
And next - the "snow monkeys"! At 850 meters there is no snow yet for this season, but the monkeys are still enjoying the 42 degree hot spring.
That's the nipple in the baby's mouth. They cuddle together to keep warm and indulge in some friendly flea hunting.
There was a 30 minute walk to see these critters, but plenty of people made it there. The interaction between the monkeys and people was of mutual respect and mostly the monkies ignored us.
An enhancement to this experience would be to see them after the snow has fallen. We plan to do that 30 min walk again, in the snow, with our family when they arrive later this month. So look forward to more photos.
Last night we camped in a clearing on a mountain at about 800m. It was cold but we had a camp-fire. We were troubled by what we thought were cries for help coming from the forest below us. We drove down the road to get closer to the calls but could not locate them. There were Japanese farmers between us and the calls and they were not reacting, so we gave up. But the calls went on all night and I could imagine how it might be to be lost in that forest on such a cold night.
In the clear light of morning we realised that the calling was still going on, but that there were lots of gun shots going off as well. Our best guess is that what we heard was a recording of voices to keep away deer and bears from the farms. So nobody froze at all!
I've always thought that the monkeys' undoubtedly wonderful experience of being in the warm water with the snow falling all around would be more than offset by the freezing experience of sitting in saturated fur in freezing conditions when they became so waterlogged that they just had to get out. But evidently not!
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