So it's been a really long time. I was busy as hell.
My sister and her fiance (pardon the lack of French accent, I am too lazy to figure out the code for it) visited for a few weeks, and we went all over creation within a few hours' train ride of Gyoda. That doesn't mean we did very much since Saitama Prefecture is essentially the New Jersey (polluted and dull) of Japan, but we got plenty done.
This time we went to Nikko, up in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture. I rented a car (remarkably easy, by the way) and we drove up to Nikko, where I promptly ran over a baby monkey. Yes, I am a horrible beast. But I swear it wasn't my fault! The cars on the other side of the road were driving moronically (caused, in retrospect, by the monkeys) and I was watching them cautiously wondering what the hell they were doing. I've learned that in Japan, driving doesn't mean anything remotely close to obeying any sort of order. This known, I was very much on the alert for boneheaded maneuvers from aforementioned other cars. I realized at the last second that the little monkey was headed straight for my car and ba-dump.
I speak of it lightly because somehow he didn't get hit by my tires. He managed to duck down and bump the underside of the car, but in my rearview he hopped up and busted ass (read: went really fast) off the road. Poor guy. I just hope it wasn't only adrenaline keeping him alive enough to get off the road. On the lighter side, I was the only one in the car to see monkeys that day.
Note that I use the male pronoun for this monkey. I do this because generally males (of any species) are the ones who are stupid enough to run into heavy tourist traffic. On the other hand, it was probably a female who managed to get them to do it.
Without further ado here are the pics, including monkeys (but not real ones)!
