The Monkey Hot Spring

The "Snow Monkeys" in Japan became famous worldwide after a 1970 cover of Life magazine featured one of them in a hot spring. More than 50 years later, they are still as popular as ever. The "Snow Monkeys" are in the wild, but you can also see monkeys in a hot spring in some zoos in Japan. While the snow monkeys are internationally famous, the zoo version is still somewhat unknown. Yet the capybara hot springs at zoos are well known.

This may be because at zoos, capybara hot springs are more common than monkey hot springs. In my own prefecture there are three different places you can see capybara in a hot spring in the winter months, and only one where you can see monkeys. And its only four days a week. And while I can name half a dozen places in the Kanto region (Greater Tokyo area) with capybara hot spring events, my local monkey hot spring is the only one I know in Japan. That is not to say there aren't any other ones, it's just the only one I know personally. It's a small little children's zoo located within Chikozan park in Sayama city.  

The day I took the photo in this post there was only one monkey in the hot spring. I was with the kids, and they didn't have the patience to wait for more than one monkey to enter the hot spring. So, I have yet to get any good photos of this seasonal event. Do you know of any monkey hot springs in Japan? Have you ever visited?