Buggirl's Increasingly Strange Tokyo Tales...

Those of you not on Facebook are not aware that we’ve got a monkey watch going on in my workplace.

The monkey was first sighted somewhere in this city a few days ago. The news spread through the city hall. For the first day all those who returned to the office were greeted with announcements of “We’ve found the Monkey!” and much laughter was had. There was also discussion of how, a few years back, there had been a wild boar sighted in this area. This lead to discussion of the merits and demerits of a Monkey attack vs. a Boar attack: Monkey people often sited the fact that monkeys can attack from above…although none mentioned the fact that boars haven’t got the thumbs or reach to fling poo.

Day two we got surveillance pictures. Mr. West thinks one series of the monkey sitting on a roof, bobbing his head, looks like an iPod ad. The monkey has been reported to be about a meter tall when standing. Monkey sighting maps were drawn up.

Thursday morning the monkey was reported in the park across from the school I’d be teaching at. As Mr. West drove me to the school, we watched the tree line. He pointed at a hill full of trees and whispered “Monkey Mountain!”

As I walked home yesterday, I realized that if the monkey continued to move in the same direction he would soon be in my hood. Sure enough, this morning Mr. West informed me that the monkey has left Nagareyama and is now in Kashiwa.

Just one more thing to keep an eye out for when I come home from my gig tonight.

 ( Yan! )

The most important part of the last day was the fact that it was the last day. This colored my perceptions of it all. I needed very little energy to propel me to my final destination and goal, to be in my apartment, alone.

( Camp: the final entry. )

I think the best hour of Japanese television I ever watched was about the bastard monkeys of Nikko. Nikko is about 2 hours north of Tokyo and is home to the Toshogu Shrine

and is an area of Japan I’ve been to 3 times so far. It is beautiful, overwhelming, overly ornate and strangely peaceful. It is also home to some vicious monkeys. The whole television report showed Nikko monkeys in action, stealing lit cigarettes out of drivers mouths, activating motion sensor doors in order to raid souvenir shops for treats, attacking entire school-groups of elementary school students on outings (my favorite footage was of the pandemonium of students running as they were attacked from multiple directions by bands of monkeys…) and all sorts of uncute shenanigans.　Perhaps the popularity of horrible performing monkeys in outfit shows is the true source of Karmic Monkey Rage here, but  I don't think so, I think the monkeys are just bastards.

( Monkey Tale )

On our second day we tried to take a bus over a small twisty-turny mountain to see a lovely waterfall. Unfortunately for us there had been a bit of a landslide and what would normally be a 45-minute ride became 4 hours of slow moving hell.

At the second to last bus stop, as the sun was getting ready to go down, I suggested we get off the bus and take the nearby funicular to see the falls. They got off with me and it was only once we were in line did one of them fess up to being afraid of heights and unable to go. Fuck. So we started to walk the rest of the road to the falls. This last bit of road took us through the center of the mountain (breathing car exhaust for over 600 meters) and the girl afraid of heights developed a limp at this point.

At this point I encountered a cute tourist from Malaysia and walked ahead with him, speaking our common language of crappy Japanese. 

Right before we got to the falls we saw them; a mother monkey and her baby. The tourist and I took pictures.

That’s when they get you…that’s when the two velociraptors you never saw…

We heard a scream and we all turned to see…three other girls from Wisconsin (who we knew) being attacked by four or five monkeys. One girl was holding souvenir bag of special Nikko treats to take back to her co-workers…but not for long. Leader monkey crawled up the screaming Wisconsinite, ripped the bag from her hand, and ran across the street to devour his ill-gotten goods. I, being very unhelpful, merely shouted in Japanese “You ain’t got no honorable souvenirs! Monkey got em!!”

And she began to scream that the bag also had her wallet. The cute Malaysian and I, still taking pictures the whole time, tried to distract the monkeys into dropping the bag. I threw my camera lens at the ringer leader’s skull, causing him to drop the bag and come hissing and swiping at my own leg…I have a picture somewhere…And then the special Nikko-monkey-control-police came and took over, scaring the Monkeys away and separating us all.

)I couldn't find the attack picture, but here are the honorable gifts...the tasty tasty gifts.

May I also warn future travelers that the scenic island of Miyajima  (one of the top three scenic spots of Japan according to all tour books) also has bastard monkeys, but they are less active. The problem with Miyajima is the bastard deer of Miyajima. Let me tell you, if Bambi’s mother were anything like these flee-infested beggar-bitches then that fateful scene in the movie would have been met with raucous cheers, not tears.

And that is somewhat anti-climactic story of being bum-rushed by monkeys.