Monkey Business

Last Thursday, a bunch of us went to Mino Koen (Park) to do some nature walking, and to see monkeys. D-Boy had gone there a few weeks before, and to kind of give another one of our group a send-off, we decided to go and get some fresh air, and see the sights. It was magnificent. Going to that park really changes your attitude, and you can see a beautiful waterfall, which really brought home for me many of the paintings in the Japanese and Chinese art section of the Walters Art Museum. It took about 45 minutes or so to walk up the mountain, but there are many temples there and also an insect museum! It was closed at the time, but I will return, just to see that.
But, the real joy was to meet, up close and personal, a monkey. This mountain has many wild monkeys in it, and one of them graced our presence. We were standing on the observatory area, throwing sticks at our friend napping below, when, out of nowhere, a cute, friendly looking simian ambled his way toward us. Hello, Mr Monkey, how do you do?

Signs posted all over the mountain read: do not feed the monkeys. Do not tempt the monkeys with food. DO NOT FEED OR TEMPT THE MONKEYS WITH FOOD, IDIOTS! (well, it doesn't say that last part, but the tone is there.) Now, at first I thought I could not read it, but, because I am progressing in my Japanese studies, I took a longer look and realized I could actually get the gist! But, guess what the guys decide to do. Yup, Here Monkey! Here are some of the figs we bought at the base of the mountain for a snack! Want some? Which, the monkey did, of course. He must have gotten a bad one, because he dropped some down on the ground, and stopped eating them. Very un-monkey like behaviour not to eat food, let alone fruit. Then, it happened: the nice monkey turned into MEAN MONKEY, MAD MONKEY--- quite literally, in seconds. He had had a happy, friendly face one moment, and the next, a look of death. You can tell monkeys are intelligent, because if you look in their eyes, you can see there is something going on behind them in their head, that same look you get from people. Same emotions, same thought patterns, really. And the look on that beast was: "if only I had a weapon, I would beat all of your asses!"

He did not, but that still did not stop him from charging at D-Boy, with murderous intent. D-Boy did the only prudent thing, and that was to shriek and scatter. The monkey then ambled away. I learned that wild animals should be treated with care and respect, and that next time I am taking a stick to that mountain. But I will go again, because of the bucolic nature of the mountain, and it is a really peaceful place. We all came away from it more relaxed, and better able to handle Whack DJ leaving us for Scotland.


So, in summary:
Riding the trains to get there: 520yen.
Package of dried figs: 600yen.
Watching D-Boy run and scream like a little girl: Priceless.