Hot-tubbing Snow Monkeys

It had been a long, long week.  Although we had promises of a more normalized work schedule for Jonathan here in Japan, the reality has been disappointingly opposite.  The word is that things are "just crazy" right now, and that soon work will settle down, but after two months of Jonathan coming home bedraggled at 3, 4, or 5 in the morning, or worse not coming home at all but working straight through the next day until after midnight, I have to admit I'm pessimistic about Tokyo's potential for a better work/life balance for Jonathan and our family.  Somehow, Jonathan remains positive and happy, which is pretty amazing.  He really likes his job, or at least, he likes it enough to be willing to work and work and work and work and work and work and work and work.  I'm...uhm...less positive.  When things get tough, I spend a lot of my day imagining situations in which I'm berating Jonathan's bosses for the awful way they take advantage of their employees.  But the majority of the time I spend thinking about how sad I feel for Jonathan, how worried I am for his health, and how long he's going to be able to keep this up before he breaks!

We had made a plan to visit a mountain town outside of Nagano (remember the 1998 winter olympics) to see the the famous red-faced, hot-tubbing snow monkeys.  Have you heard about these monkeys?  Japan is basically made up of a lot of volcanos, which is a little scary to think about, but it  means that it is ripe with beautiful hot springs. Even up in the tall powdery mountains, often referred to as the Japanese Alps, luxuriously warm water pools amidst the cold, deep snow.  Ski towns form along the mountains building "ryokans" which are traditional Japanese hotels and bathhouses on the hot springs. You may be surprised to learn that we humans are not the only animals out there who know how to take a load off and relax ourselves in volcanically heated spring water.

The plan was to leave on Saturday morning and come back on Sunday evening.  Jonathan left for work early on Thursday morning and didn't come home until Saturday morning at around 3 am.  I was sure that our plans would be cancelled.  No matter how badly Jonathan wanted to go he needed sleep and in all likelihood he was probably going to work over the weekend.  But to my surprise and concern Jonathan bounced out of bed after only a few hours of sleep and commenced packing our bags, chanting "Snow Monkeys!  Snow Monkeys!" as he went.  He was a little looney with lack of sleep, and although I tried to reason with him, I could see that his determination, his sheer will to have fun with our family overcame his physical and mental exhaustion, and although I was certain that he would surely crash at some inconvenient point during our trip, I went along with it..."Snow Monkeys! Snow Monkeys!"

It took us three hours on three different trains to get to our little ryokan high up in Japan's snowy mountains. We were most excited to ride the Shinkansen or bullet train.  As you probably know, the bullet train has particularly caught the imagination of Sawyer, and since we arrived in Japan he's been nuts to ride one.  In fact, every time we ride the metro he asks, "This is the bullet train, right mom?" and I have to disappoint him by saying, "No, Sauce.  This is just a normal train."  Unfortunately, we didn't give him the experience we hoped for...We (Jonathan!) decided to save a few bucks and buy tickets in the unreserved seats car.   We ended up standing for about 35 minutes and the only window near by was a small square that we had to lift Sawyer up to look out.  Sawyer's a big kid--sustained lifting in not an option.  (This is the perfect time for me to also record how Sawyer is obsessed with getting bigger, "like Daddy."  When he eats he often runs through this ritual, "This food is going to go into my mouth and go down, down, down into my belly and make me get really, really big, like daddy.  My belly is going to get big.  My penis is going to get big.  My fingers are going to get big.  My bum is going to get big..." and so on, until I have to remind him that he does actually have to eat his food to get bigger.)  Finally, enough people got off our train that we could sit down.  We ate a couple of bentos and were comfy and happy going ~200mph through Japan's countryside.

Our ryokan was just the right thing for our family.  They put us off in a room away from the majority of the guests.  That way our kids could scream and we could be less tense about disturbing the zen of other guests.  The innkeeper even closed off one of the bathing rooms so that our family could use it privately for a short time before dinner that night.  The bath houses are usually segregated.  Sawyer and Lyla loved bathing in the hot spring.  Of course after our hot bath, Jonathan crashed. It was perfect timing though because we had to wait around for the call that our dinner was ready.  We all "slept" that night in futons on the floor.

The next morning we bundled up and set off on our snow monkey adventure.  The inn keeper drove us to the trailhead where we had to hike a little over a mile on a snowy path up a mountain to reach the monkeys' hot springs.  The way up was easy.  Sawyer and Lyla were fresh and excited. The monkeys were adorable.  We were jealous as we watched them swim in the steamy hot spring.  Sawyer kept his distance, but Lyla started howling at them because she wanted one to cuddle up with. When it was time to turn back we were all pretty cold and it was lunch time and neither kid had napped...armageddon ensued.  Both kids had the worst meltdowns of their lives.  At one point Jonathan was hiking down the mountain holding both kids as they tried to out-scream one another.  It was 45 minutes of sheer torture.  Lyla was literally writhing in my arms as we walked.  When I would put her down, she would throw herself in the snow and flop around like a frantic fish trying to find water, except not silent....like a frantic fish with the lungs of a squealing pig in a slaughter house.  Yea, that's about right.  We couldn't get either of them to stop until we found a little diner at the bottom of the mountain.  Of course, Lyla just wanted to nurse and Sawyer would only be appeased if we ordered him a hot chocolate AND and ice-cream cone.  But finally, we had some relief.  And after everyone's belly were full and our toes were warm and circulating blood again, we were happy.

We planned to spend the next few hours touring the little town at the bottom of the mountain, but after what shall here-to-fore be remembered as "The Great Meltdown on Snow Monkey Mountain" we decided that we should just go home as fast as we could possibly go.  The trip home was lovely.  We sat Sawyer and Lyla in front of the iPad where they watched Despicable Me 2 for the 400th time.  (This is a terrible movie to show your baby and toddler, but desperate times call for desperate measures.) They were so quiet that Jonathan and I almost felt like we were alone...we always count quiet children as a miracle.

To put the icing on the cake, when we arrived in Tokyo we walked home from the station in the cold rain, carrying our packs and our kids.  Thank goodness for our comfy home and our family-sized shower to warm us up after our cold, snowy, rainy adventure in Japan.