One Spontaneous Snow Monkey Show, No Reservation Required
A last-minute day trip from Tokyo to Karuizawa, an hour's wait for a table, and a forest full of snow monkeys we never planned to see.
Karuizawa came to us as a recommendation. Our former exchange student’s mother mentioned it — a mountain town a couple of hours from Tokyo where Japanese families go on holiday, not somewhere on the foreign-tourist circuit.
That was enough for us. Trevor and I both wanted out of the city and up into the mountains, and I wanted a reason to ride the Shinkansen, so yesterday we went, with no plan past the train.
There are nine of us here, ten days in Japan. On the first full day we took a guided tour of Tokyo… the kind you take to get your bearings and pick up a few things to come back to on your own. We had several group activity days, and meetups with our student and his family (the primary reason we’re here).
Then we left three of the ten days completely open. No group plan, no shared itinerary. Each person creates their own adventure.
Yesterday was one of those days.
Trevor and I knew two places we wanted to see in Karuizawa: Harunire Terrace, a boardwalk of shops and restaurants near the ski resort, and Kyu-Karuizawa Ginza Street. Past that, it was our phones and Maps and whatever turned up along the way.
A taxi from the station to Harunire Terrace was easy to find; just queue outside the station.
Once there, the restaurants run on electronic check-in. You register, they message you when your table's ready. Ours was about an hour out.
Trevor went walking in the forest. I took a cafe table on a small outdoor patio and settled in to write my day’s journal entry.
Then the gasps started. Startled laughter from the tables around me.
Snow monkeys were coming out of the forest from every direction, into the clearing right in front of us.
Two of them shoved and wrestled like they had something to settle. A mother lumbered across the lawn with a baby riding on her back. One bounded across the patio and up a tree a few meters from where I sat.
I messaged Trevor to come back so he wouldn’t miss out. No worries there… he was already surrounded. Dozens of them were streaming past him through the trees on their way to the same clearing.
He caught a glimpse of the same mom and baby monkey in the forest, up in the foliage.
We couldn’t have planned something like that.
About The Karuizawa Snow Monkeys
The ones that wandered out of the forest are Japanese macaques — “snow monkeys,” the northernmost-living primates on earth besides us. The troop at Harunire Terrace is local and wild, going about its business whether or not anyone’s watching.
If you’ve seen the famous photos of monkeys soaking in a steaming hot spring, those are a different group: the habituated troop at Jigokudani Monkey Park, in the same national park but up in northern Nagano, about 80 km away. It’s under two hours by car, though public transit sends you the long way around through Nagano.
Those snow monkeys started gathering at that pool decades ago, after people began feeding them there, and the snow-and-onsen scenes are a winter thing, roughly late December to early April.
The Karuizawa monkeys don’t do the hot-spring soak, to my knowledge. They just turn up spontaneously and entertain.
It’s the part I keep turning over. The monkeys weren’t on any list. They turned up in the one hour we had nothing scheduled, on one of the days we’d deliberately left blank, on a trip we took because someone we knew said the locals like it there.
The guided tour on day one was the opposite kind of day, all structure and orientation, and it did its job.
But the day I’ll remember is the one with the gap in it. We left a little room, and something amazing came to fill it.
Now, that’s not always the case. Sometimes an empty hour is just an empty hour, and I appreciate that, too.
It’s a hard thing to leave empty space in your life on purpose. We plan our trips now with more information than anyone has ever had: every place ranked, every hour bookable before we land. The pull is to plan all of it, to fill every hour, every moment, so we don’t miss a thing.
But a full day has no room left in it for the thing you didn’t know you wanted.
Think about the last time something genuinely, delightfully surprised you. Then think about the last time you had your heart set on something and it didn’t go the way you’d pictured.
I know I’d rather be surprised than disappointed. How about you?
Are you leaving room for surprise, whether that’s in your work, your travels or life in general?
✌🏻 Miranda
Taking the Shinkansen: a Few Notes
The Shinkansen is Japan’s high-speed rail network, and it’s the reason a day trip like this one is even possible. The lines fan out from Tokyo in different directions — west toward Kyoto and Osaka, north and northwest toward the mountains. Karuizawa sits about an hour up the Hokuriku line, close enough to leave Tokyo after breakfast and be back for dinner.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
We didn’t book ahead, and to get two seats together we ended up upgrading to Gran Class, the top tier, at the Tokyo Station ticket desk. For me this trip was about the Shinkansen itself, so I didn’t mind the splurge. If you’re traveling on a budget, reserve early or be prepared to take whatever seats you can get. The fastest trains, like the Kagayaki, skip Karuizawa, so you’ll want the Asama or Hakutaka.
Don’t count on buying food onboard. Cart service has been pulled from most lines and now survives only on a few, in certain classes. Stock up at the station instead: ekiben (station bento), sandwiches, and whatever the platform vending machines are offering.
Japanese trains are quiet. Keep your voice low and your phone on silent.
And take your garbage with you. You’re expected to carry it off and bin it yourself.
Accurate as of June 2026 — onboard service and schedules change, so check the line you’re riding before you go.
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