If you ever find yourself in Kyushu’s Oita prefecture, I recommend a visit to Takasakiyama (Mt. Takasaki) to see the troop(s) of macaques that have made it their home.

Mount Takasaki is famous for its colony of 1500 monkeys. Tourists can venture as far as the old temple partway up the hill (monorail available for those who’ve already put in some hard tourist hours!).

The colony is actually split into three groups of roughly the same size, and the groups come down to the tourist accessible area (because it’s also their feeding area) at different times of the day, for a few hours.

And while there, they spend their time grooming, playing, and sleeping.

And chilling.

And posing for photographs.