Beppu/Hakata - girl

After an extremely impressive ride on the Shinkansen (with views of Mt. Fuji) we arrived in Hakata, a slightly dull city in the north of Kyushu. Just before boarding the train we were browsing in the station shops. A woman buying cakes for herself bought C and me cake too. How often does that happen? We were totally flabbergasted but luckily C remembered how to thank her properly in Japanese. On the train I found C looking at me with an extremely loving look on his face. He lent over, to kiss me, I thought, and licked my cheek. Turns out I had cake cream on my face. And I thought the loving look was for me!

 

Since it was only ever meant to be a stop-over we really didn't mind the dullness. A quick look at a couple of temples and a lovely Genki sushi meal (see Hong Kong for related comments) later and we were on the train to Beppu, onsen capital of Japan. Onsen means hot spring in Japanese but it also used to mean the public bath-houses built on top of the springs. We basically chose to visit in order to check out these bath-houses. In two and a half days we managed to take in five of the things. The first was a sand-bath: lie down wearing nothing but a yakuta (Japanese cotton dressing gown) and let a similarly clad woman bury you in hot sand. The sand is said to have healing properties. I have no idea if it's true or not but it was certainly an interesting experience that provides some interesting feelings. While C was busy dealing with claustrophobia and ideas of being buried alive, I was too busy looking around to relax. I spent my time watching others relax, totally forgetting about my own opportunity for peace. Fool.

 

The second was a mixed onsen. Sexes separate to wash (lots of wandering around naked with soap) and then swimming costume-up to relax, outside together. We were lucky enough to be staying in a hostel with its own onsen so we checked that one out each morning too. I'm not sure I've ever been so clean.

 

Embarrassingly, at one of the onsens, I tried to use a drinking fountain - not too hard, I would have thought. Instead of drinking from the damn thing I ended up pelting myself in the eye with an extremely powerful jet of cold water. It took a few minutes for sight to be restored.

 

This was my first real experience of a tatami-matted room and I loved every second of it. Our hotel room was a mix of western and Japanese. We had tatami mats on the floor, a low table and cushions but also bunk beds. In the cupboard though we found our futons so opted to sleep on the floor, Japanese style. Much fun.

 

A quick trip to the 'Hells' wasn't. The hells are a group of sulphur pools that aren't very exciting so the Japanese have half heartedly tried to make them into a tourist attraction by sanitising the life out of them and giving them crappy themes. C loved the crocodile themed pool (basically a pool and then a crocodile farm) but I was harder to win over. I was hoping that Japan wouldn't have crappy tourist spots but even they're not immune.