Mount Takasaki: Too many monkeys

Takasakiyama or Mt. Takasaki is an area about a 10 minute bus ride from central Beppu where you can see "wild" monkeys. They didn't seem all that wild to me, the place wasn't exactly what I imagined. They keep the monkeys in one general area by feeding them. There is also someone constantly speaking into a megaphone in Japanese explaining about the monkeys, but we couldn't understand. If you speak Japanese, it might be more interesting because you would be able to understand the explainations about the various monkey tribes. The boyfriend knows enough Japanese to figure out that there are three tribes that live together there. We were able to see the number one monkey (the monkey king, as he liked to put it) from one of the tribes. Of course, he wasn't doing anything kingly, just sitting around grooming himself.


You get an idea for the immense amounts of monkeys here when it was feeding time. They threw some seeds on the ground and they all came running...

They were quite cute though. Before feeding time, it was grooming time, and they were all paired up picking bugs off each other...

These wild monkeys made their way out of the forest and on to the bridge for a photo opportunity.

There are two different buses that can take you to Takasakiyama from Beppu. Just ask at the Information center about which buses, and the time schedule. Buses seemed to come about twice an hour and because of the short distance, it was fairly cheap to get there. Once you're there, save yourself the 100 yen and walk up to the monkey area. It's only about a 5 minute walk, albeit up hill. We chose to get exercise rather than take the monkey monorail to the top. Also, ask at the information center about a coupon to get in, we got 20% off the entrance fee with that coupon.