the snow monkeys of nagano japan (in japan!)

it took us 13 years but we finally made it to check out them famous snow apes. it’s…pretty amazing, you should go too.
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man I’m going to put my wiener in a guant more often that’s pretty good in this episode we hunt dinos so we’re hunting dinos yeah we’re looking for dinos watch monkeys do it and hear how Katie feels about candy bars here’s how I feel about candy bars anniversary trip second day I have no idea what’s going on uh it’s like 9:30ish 9:30 we’ve rode to a bakery Eric has told me that today will be much like yesterday which was kind of an intense day I think it’s going to be minus the pizza we’re only talking about the idea that we’re going to ride about an hour and a half to do something and then ride an hour and a half back what she doesn’t know is I found a pizza place that claims to be open but isn’t so and the baked goods are apparently incredible based on a Google review this guy said this is the best bakery he’s ever been at best one I’ve had in my life but to be honest with you it kind of just seems like all the other like really don’t get wrong I’m not shooting fire but like there’s a lot of bakeries like this in Japan but what I noticed is some interesting cakes on things they’re doing things are a little more creative they’re putting a sausage inside of a quason you can’t pass up a sausage inside of a quason so I’ve got myself a sausage inside a a it’s a little expensive though I could see though if you haven’t been to a bunch of Japanese bakeries how you would walk in there and be like this is the best baker I’ve ever seen yeah but to us like we’ve been to a lot of them it’s sort of like yeah this one’s you know this is in the it’s like in the upper echelon it’s not bad it’s not like ratty my label for this one was uh it’s a little expensive like K had mentioned she doesn’t know where we’re going today but I know where we’re going and it’s about a 2hour ride from where we’re at and it’s not the most direct route and the reason it’s not the most direct route is cu the most direct route is actually closed for the winter and I was curious about it and I looked at it and it turns out that the part that’s closed which is near where we’re going is the highest Road in Japan so if that gives you an idea of what kind of mountains we’re getting involved in I think I can describe where we’re going and the idea is up yeah basically we’re going up and I think it’s going to be warm enough where we’re going that there’s not going to be this ice and snow on the road I think that’s all gone I mean where we’re at right now scooty says it’s 17 a sign said it was 14 a minute ago so it’s somewhere in there that’s definitely not snowy weather but I don’t know I I don’t know how ridiculous up we’re going to go but it could fail it could be a thing where we can get like 80% of the way there and then we can’t get the rest of the way there I don’t know so we’re going for a scoot if we can get where we’re going it’s going to be freaking cool and if we can’t get where we’re going it’s still going to be kind of fun I think I want a Snickers we could probably get you a Snickers you want a Snickers yeah they have Snickers here yeah how bad do you want Snickers you want me to stop like later Snickers it’s a later Snickers desire and and then I just sit here and think to myself there’s probably something better along this route than a Snickers thing so there’s probably a black Thunder sitting next to that Snickers and that’s better we’ve been driving for a little over an hour and a half and we have gone over a pretty windy mountain path and then through way more Villages and towns than I expected to be out here there must be a larger City that we’re nearby that all these people are connected to somehow now we’re in some sort of area where all the trees are inspired by Tim Burton yeah yeah there’s like all these Orchards and stuff too a lot of very different types of environments that we’re going through but I suspect this mountain range that’s out in front of us is going to be something we’re going to be climbing up pretty soon to some degree that’s kind of the feeling that I get I think we’re going into mountainy areas and I think Katie still is in the dark about what we’re doing have you not figured it out yet I haven’t figured it out and even there was a whole bunch of like signs at the last turn we made and I was like you to avert your eyes cuz there might be some sort of information so I just turned my eyes it wouldn’t surprise me if you figur it out at some point to be completely honest with you cuz we’re going to grab lunch first and I don’t know if the lunch place is going to be like hey this is the famous thing from the area like all over the walls you know how they do that I know that if kisses happen some sort of bite will happen yeah it’s possible that’s that’s the only thing that I’m yeah and I know that’s really out of context because we had this conversation earlier not being recorded and so I know that kisses equal bites in the mountain that’s all I know right now yeah it’s not going to be as gentle as the alpacas [Music] okay so you think you figured out what’s going on what’s going on some sort of monkey business I saw some monkeys on a sign they were taking a bath and then there’s this monkey on the telephone here did you even know about this monkey until I pointed him out right now you need to watch your cell phone pretty much I have an attachment for my wrist for my cell phone I don’t know about yours boy you missing a Wasabi game you got to get up on this it’s really good it’s really strong it’s also it’s really moist and just exciting I’m in a situation where I don’t know what I’m doing okay we’ve come to a soba restaurant I have never seen on a menu what I’ve ordered this is a soba dumpling so like instead of them making it into noodles they have just plopped it into a bunch of hot water yeah it’s hot so I think that you just take this honk and you give it a dunk [Music] it’s softer than I thought it was going to be like uh dumplings that you have in America the ones that I make for our chicken and dumplings like they’re kind of hard and I guess you can cook them longer or whatever this is incredibly soft like a little Cloud uh flavor is not like a flavor it’s like kind of how dumplings are dumplings don’t really have flavor so there’s not a whole lot of flavor in here but there’s a whole lot of dumpling like they called this A light meal and I was like all right I thought it was going to be like half of this sauce is just a soy sauce base the same thing that you would have if you were having soba and I think that soba is pretty much soy sauce it might have some other additives that take away the edginess of soy sauce soy sauce is like hugely sodium based but this is like a soft soy sauce put some onions in it put the Wasabi in which I’m going full Wasabi now that I’ve had my time with only half Wasabi and that’s going to be more of an adventure on the next bite I came in here and I got the off menu item apparently this is not on the menu I just saw it on Google so I asked like do you have this off menu thing and she was like we do it’s called na yaki udon so instead of a SOA noodle which has buckweed in it this is just a Udo noodle which does not and it’s a flat noodle which is good and they’ve put um Tempa inside of this hot pot and it came out and it was boiling so that’s exciting looks like I’ve got some vegetables and some shrimp and an egg is in there as well and it’s really really good the broads is really rich um being out on the motorbike it’s been getting cold so a big warm soup is kind of like what what I’m in for let me uh jump into the shrimp to see how it’s doing even though it might be a little hot we’ll give it a try God look at it’s like steamy baby yeah that’s wow that’s going to burn me right might have to put that on the later base Katie’s like nodding put it is draining off let’s see okay y that God yeah this is like Stellar it’s like really good like Mountain food in the winter I’m happy I asked for the off menu think I don’t think she was ready for like the white dude to come in here and order off menu we did it in at one um I’ve also got a little tray of some like we always say this pickled stuffs it’s like some sort of pickled stuffs I honestly don’t know what this is it’s just more of a texture than it is a flavor and some cute uh cutie uh cucumber of not the outside of this place has got a gang of Tanis and it’s a good sign if you have a gang of Tunis you’re going to probably be fairly happy about what you eat inside this just something I’ve noticed over the years of being here just little tip what’s the outside of mju do you know what the outside is uh sweet stuff sweet stuff all right this is a Manu we’re going to go through what that means mju is a sweets inside of a mju is usually sweet beans the outer layer is usually like kind of a steamy or structured container I don’t know what it’s made of you get it for the sweet Bean this you don’t think about the outside too much but the outside’s nice this one is a Manu a means that they’ve deep fried it back there that’s not usual and it’s on the menu for a restaurant that’s really unusual so I’m going to chop into this guy it comes out warm I don’t I don’t know if m baked it’s mju baked have no idea Ste usually it’s just a sweet treat that now has a warmth to it that you don’t normally get when you purchase it in a convenience store this is kind of a crunchiness this is kind of like when America deep fries a stick of butter whatever Snickers or something yeah it’s exactly that oo it’s fun and crunchy and nice it’s just fun outside is almost like a tempura actually it’s fun that’s really good this place is doing some unique stuff before we leave I’m out here hanging out with the gang Katie comes out and she’s like you found the secret Tanooki apparently if you come around the back door there’s a bonus Tanooki [Music] [Music] okay so we’re in Nagano we’ve been here before but we’ve never actually investigated this snow monkey situation that they’ve got going on and it is because it’s kind of a super touristy thing so it’s kind of been like something I’ve always want to see but not prioritized that was a mistake it’s actually pretty amazing the snow monkeys if you’re unaware are these monkeys that live in this Valley that gets a lot of snow in the winter but we’re at the tail end of it so the snow has all basically gone I’m kind of happy about that cuz I think it could be really really cold but it would be amazing looking yeah however it’s still a bit chilly and we are still seeing monkeys that are trying to avoid that Chill by getting into the hot springs this area is one of Japan’s many hell valleys and that is a geological area that has geysers and things like that and they’ve got geysers here that are just blasting out constantly and it’s kind of like okay this is a big stream of geyser happening yeah and they also have little pools where there’s hot water going into them and the monkeys are congregating in that area and doing crazy monkey stuffs I always thought this might kind of not be that much fun because it was like a super touristy thing and it is there’s a lot of tourists here but as soon as you start just watching monkeys you can just avoid everything else that’s going on around you with like the you know how International tourist places can be you know what I’m saying I say the the aim is the same for everyone and there’s quite a bit of wonderment about what’s happening that it doesn’t seem to be such a touristy thing it just is wow we’re in this this is really happening yeah it’s really happening the monkeys are running around in all areas There Are Places you aren’t allowed to go but the monkeys are allowed over there and they’re also allowed in the area that you are and they’re allowed to do whatever they want they can fight they can yeah I could be wrong but I think these monkeys they can swim they can do whatever they want to do and we saw all of those uh while we were here very incredible that they just get to exist here and that they’re completely fine with people just being around it’s almost like to them we don’t even exist like it’s almost like you’re like running like parallel universes or something and they can’t see into our universe they just kind of are going around doing their thing and we don’t matter at all EX to these monkeys I don’t quite understand how these monkeys are a way where they’re like trying to take things from people or whatever like it’s just this it’s not the personality of these monkeys I mean stuff we had monkeys like try to steal things off our motor bike and things you know what I mean like these monkeys are not aggressive at all they’re just monkeying around doing their thing slightly aggressive to each other yeah yeah there’s a lot of fighting going on between the actual monkeys U but yeah this is like way better than I expected it to be I for some reason thought it would be just like you pull up like in your car in a parking lot and like everybody get shuffled in with a bunch of buses or something like that like it’s not it’s not at all like that it’s not quite that bad there’s a big there’s like what was like 1.6 km of a walk that we had to take to get from where we had to park scooty to where you get to see monkeys yeah and it was a relaxing walk not hard not up not down just straight it was very muddy which was interesting but little muddy yeah um it’s a cool experience from the start probably to the end we’re going to find out we haven’t left yet would you say that this is something people should try to come and do like if they come to Japan they have the means scale of 1 to 10 I’m going to give this a 7 to an eight I think the monkey part of it is incredible um I don’t know why it’s not a nine or a 10 I can’t put my finger on it there’s something about it that’s not a nine or a 10 I wonder if you came here and it was legitimately snowing and stuff if you had the right gear and stuff which you bring the right gear oh they have rentals here actually they do but if you’re my size they don’t have rentals yeah that’s true so like just be prepared for that but if you came here in the winter the scene might be nuts and I wonder if maybe if you came early in the morning if you could avoid all the crowds and that might help a little bit too but regardless it is totally worth coming and it’s something that we have been in Japan for like 13 years and we haven’t made it here yet so I’m happy we finally made it and now we’re going to maybe go have apple pie and then we’re probably going to have a very cold ride home on the motorbike yes walking out of there and I’m starting to think about like should you come here I think if you came here on a weekend it might be terrible like there really weren’t very many Japanese tourists here because it’s like Tuesday right now so those people aren’t going to be here cuz they’re at work or whatever but if you came here on a weekend or a holiday if you had all the foreigners that were there plus a bunch of like domestic tourism going on that could maybe not be okay so if you do come here aim for a weekday and try not to probably hit golden week I’d assume that’s pretty bad too we’ve come to a little cafe called isza and isza means monkey sitting and we’re sitting I’m feeling a little monkey like and they have got apparently famous apple pie so we’ve got an apple pie and it comes in a couple of little triangles with some ice cream and I also got a ginger ale that is hot and it is divine it is explosively ginger ale I put some lemon in there too to be completely honest with you I think ginger ale is one of my favorite things like I really dig it and we have no way to really cut this Fork broke it’s broke and this is the smaller Fork I think I’m just going to pick it up and eat it yeah I don’t know what’s going on here all right two mon mon two monkeys potential but it’s not warm yeah it should be War surprises me when it’s not warm mhm um it’s like a flaky pastry I didn’t get any Apple did you get any Apple no not the Apple all right I found Apple I’m going to get in and if you’re going to pair it with ice cream shouldn’t it be warm is it warm or it should be not it being not it’s not like ice cold but it’s is room temperature and yeah that’s kind of a missed opportunity hot apple pie is like we didn’t order hot we ordered apple pie not hot apple pie how is the ice cream um it’s not yesterday that’s for sure the problem is I think we hit a high bar yesterday it’s fine though it doesn’t have like much personality it’s just kind of like I just just hold stuff then now all we have left is the cold right home M I’m not looking forward to that it wasn’t a terribly Frosty ride I feel like yesterday was colder but we were really beining to get back so we didn’t do our usual kind of every hour to an hour and a half break so by about hour two I started to just feel done I did have capability to try and find us a restaurant to go to called it on the phone made sure it was open lady sounded legit and U we drive up Eric sees a sign outside that says they’re preparing we’re like how is that even possible but we came inside little old lady she’s very straightforward she just showed her arm to tell me to go and sit down and then I was having trouble deciding between to Tatu or shogayaki tonkatsu is like breaded deep fried pork shogayaki is usually pork with onions and um kind of like a sweet sauce and shoga is in the sauce which is ginger um she had explained that it has lots of vegetables and now I’m realizing it does have lots of vegetables for the shoga Yaki that’s what I picked but when I asked her like which one should I eat she was like I have narrowed down this menu over years upon years they’re all my suggested ones she would not help me at all um so that was very funny but I’ve ended up with the shaki she said that it is tons of veggies and it certainly is this is mushrooms it’s called My it’s one of my favorite mushrooms in the world and I have a pile of it right now [Music] I’ve eaten a lot of shogayaki this feels very different I see the ginger in it but there’s something special about it like more than it’s veggies cuz usually it’s just pork and onions so it’s kind of weird to have that sauce on something other than that uh of note as well there’s a kiwi here that never happens on these like toshokan dishes we’ve got soup rice pickles other mushroom friends this is an insane amount of food and it looks really good and I’m very tired can I ask question I’m going to drown in this food what’s a toan toan what is that oh I called it I I said it was a library Shoku do T Shoku I think is the word you’re looking for oh did I call the food the library or did I call the building okay thank you well my bad I have ordered the KAG and it is the most extravagant looking C set I’ve ever seen of note this is looking kind of dark and I’m wondering if it’s a soy sauce based cooking instead of just like you know deep fried batter or whatever [Music] sorry about that some of the fat was like stuck Jesus it’s really good also got Qs and oranges and like Don and nuts this is a good find you know something random that Katie had Googled and found is a scooty okay to scoot him it’s like this is far from scooting like Smurf like how you use the word Smurf for all the verbs oh yes you do that that’s not I’m glad you’ve acknowledged it now in the end it rained a whole lot yesterday which is the day we were supposed to go home all day long a huge storm just rolled over so we ended up in this town of Saku for a day longer than we had anticipated which was kind of fine it wasn’t a big deal I did you went streaming we met up SI area it worked out okay so we are going to be heading back here in a little bit and uh getting back to Tokyo and today I just want to say today I just want to say that’s not how I want to say that but this weekend it wasn’t a weekend our anniversary thing was fun that’s all I want to say it was really cool alpacas monkeys Adventure scooting around on these windy roads and stuff it’s really fun up here and so that was a good one for our 13th anniversary he likes me I do she’s pretty cool um also if you want to help us keep making videos like this that are super fun uh you can help us out on patreon that’s uh yeah you can go over there you can get like early glimpses into things videos Early Access is what I’m trying to say much like you I can’t get words out um but also there’s the postcard club which I love sending out postcards and guess what I bet you there’s going to be an alpaca on one coming up soon or a monkey I was hoping for an Alca yeah your monkey pictures are really damn got a couple of good monkey pictures maybe just two months so anyway two months in a row that’s how we keep everything funded and we appreciate everybody helping us keep everything funded so we can keep doing this kind of stuff uh We’ve also got the Social Media stuff there’s a whole bunch of links down below and the main thing we’re pushing these days is Twitch like Katie mentioned I was stre having a lot of fun streaming yeah I was streaming yesterday and I don’t know we’re thinking about maybe streaming the right home to I’m not sure yet if we’re going to or not so just like that’s where we’re hanging out in real time and it’s fun to just get to talk to you guys and get to know you guys through Twitch in real time it’s fun and I think that’s it so on to year 14 we’re already in it we’re already in it it’s going pretty good yeah there’s a little epilogue we’ve been driving through these incredibly amazing Back Road curvy things in gonma getting back to Tokyo and apparently there’s a dinosaur footprint like way out in the middle of nowhere so we’re dinos now we’re looking for dinos so it turns out that 250 million years ago the water level of the sea came up to above where we’re at now which is weird cuz it feels like we’re way up in the mountains but I guess I mean the ocean was higher right and during that time this rock wall that was behind us was underwater and I guess dinosaurs of some sort we don’t really know what kind we’re like stomping around and leaving their Footprints in this because it would have been a softer material at the time time these things that look like but holes behind me basically those are apparently dinosaur footprints and then a bunch of time past the waters went down and apparently there was some sort maybe an earthquake or something like mud slides that let this stuff come out like it was buried for a long time and then at some point it like and then they became there so they were fossilized inside of this rock formation and there’s also an area down in this little stream that’s running behind us that is an area that they’re doing fossiling like digging like scientific stuff exploration archology dude archaeology thank you and they’re they’re like figuring things out and finding more like shellfish or whatever and stuff so this place is like dinosaur uh active it’s kind of interesting like we’re like out in the middle of nowhere but I mean I guess like the dinosaurs weren’t just chilling in the cities so kind of makes sense I guess it could be anywhere we’re done with that shot finished I’m done oh you don’t think black lender is better than sckers I don’t I think there are so so here’s how I feel about candy bars there’s either like what one would classify as a good candy bar or just a candy bar that’s trying to be a candy bar and I think that Snickers and black Thunder both qualify as candy bar you might think that there’s like um Milky Way I say that’s not that’s a candy bar trying to be a candy bar or like something trying to be a candy bar it’s not enough but they’re both candy what are you talking about black fun is amazing I I it’s classified as candy bar which means it’s good you think Snickers might be better I guess at the point yeah I gu I I I don’t understand [Music] SMY making me purose [Music] [Music] [Music]