Yudanaka Onsen

The rapid express to Yudanaka

is more comfortable than the local train, and only costs $1 more

We stopped at Obuse which is about half way between Nagano and Yudanaka

Hokusai lived here for a portion of his life and left a number of paintings here.
As a result there is a Hokusai museum. 

A painting of a ghost naga made of plates

From Hokusai's early Hentai phase.

How the wood block prints are put together

a party of Tengu save some imperiled fishermen

A hippocampus, a mermaid, and a kappa from Hokusai's "Bestiary 2"

Hokusai's PCs shoot a cannon at a Sea Monster 

Hokusai was much more a fan of the Dragons side of things, Dungeons, not so much his thing.

Several Dragons from the original Bestiary

Hokusai's GMPC, a soot dragon that emerged from a pipe when summoned

The BBEG from his second full length campaign

Art for his later supplements was in color

An illustration of the most memorable fight from the first campaign, where watanabe rolled three nat 20s in a row and cut off the arm of the gate demon

Hokusai was usually a forever GM, but on the rare occasion that he got a chance to play, he would put a lot of effort into his character portraits

His first PC portrait, notable for its lack of coloration

Hokusai built several GMing pagodas

The art from the ceilings is some of his largest remaining works

A phoenix

A dragon

Signature waves

Signature waves 2 - electric boogaloo

The Ryokan in Yudanaka

Trad room and bedding

illuminations

Private Onsen

No falling snow this time, sadly

The monkey park

Much snow

The river is through the trees below

A goat was above us on the trail to the monkey park

It followed us until we were just inside

Monkey!

Dozens of monkeys were hanging out across the river

rooting through the snow and dead leaves for seeds

hanging out in the hot tub

It's not all monkeys. In addition to the the goat there was also this bird.

The monkeys in the river would occasionally get into fights and chase wach other around until someone got to a place where they couldn't be followed easily

It's over Anakin, I have the high ground.

there is a frog in the gift shop. Not sure if he's local.

A view back down the valley

Info about the goat

There's a big statue in Yudanaka, it's up some steps

some of the some steps

They've thoughtfully been protected from the snow in midget sized tunnels

The hand cleansing station was frozen solid

The statue. Not sure if those last 5 steps are in the count

A magical bell that makes wishes come true

There's another, smaller, lamer statue up yet more stups

"I fukken love me some steps. Almost as much as I love statues. Lets go"

Some one is getting pushed down all these steps

The statue was locked away

just by a latch though, to "stop the monkeys playing pranks", whatever that's a euphemism for

(I have blurred out the faces of people whose permission I didn't ask to put on the internet)

At dinner we met Keika, a young woman sitting near us who asked where we were from. She works in an instant Miso factory and hates her job, so she wants to be an airline hostess and live in the USA or Australia. She was eating dinner with her Aunt and Uncle who speak pretty good English, and I think live in New York. She is trying to learn English so that she can get her dream job/move abroad, so we spent a while talking to her, often through her cousin (also pictured who had slightly better English), because her English is still very limited.

The train trip back was largely snow free