Distracted by Monkeys While Buying Japanese Eyeglass Frames

We’re still in Japan buying new styles of glasses frames to bring back to our office.  Yesterday I went out for a jog around the area of Japan where most of the eyeglass factories are, and two monkeys ran right in front of me and disappeared into the forest. One of them was carrying a Kabocha squash he had stolen from a garden.  Evidently, this particular band of monkeys is unpopular around this area because they’ve been into gardens here a lot lately.  The folks around here are nothing if not protective of their gardens, there was a local documentary on TV a few years ago about an elderly lady who fought off a bear who was in her garden.  I’m pretty sure the monkeys I saw were the Japanese Macaque, or Snow Monkey.  No snow around this time of year, but here’s a picture I like of them visiting the hot springs of Nagano to get warmed up in the winter.

Photo By Yosemite (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons