Monday March 19th

Im doing this a little out of order because I need another day to compose my thoughts re: Hiroshima/Nagasaki. So I'm skipping right to Beppu, which is where we are now. Beppu is one of Japan's best hot spring towns, producing some of the best quality onsen spas. It is very busy this weekend, as we found out today that it is a national holiday.

So, today I got to experience my first onsen (hot spring bath). All this time I've been worried about the whole public nudity thing because it isn't really that common for women in North America, but I got over that fear after a few mins of loitering in the hall by myself... I just couldn't get over how unbelievably HOT those tubs are! Yowza! The hotel we're staying at has both private and public baths, and as far as I can tell the only difference is that the public baths are on the roof in the open air overlooking the mountains, and the private one is enclosed in a room one floor down. Beautiful and peaceful, granted I wouldn't know any different because I couldn't hear a damn thing without my aid on, but you actually don't feel the cold when you're basically simmering (cooking) in a tub full of scalding hot water. Anyhow, as I sit here in my room in my yukata, my skin feels wonderfully soft and even though it is only about 10 degrees and my windows are open, I'm still toasty warm and my skin has never been softer. So maybe there's something to it after all. 

Backtracking a bit, this morning we got up early and had breakfast, checked out and went straight to the train station to catch the Kyushu express back to Hakata (Fukuoka). These trains aren't as smooth as the other Shinkansen, so I was loaded to the hilt with Gravol to try to suppress the motion sickness. Lucky for me, that just means I get to take a nice long nap. It took about 2hrs to get to Hakata, and then the transfer from there to Beppu was another hour and a half or so.

When we arrived it was still too early to check in so we spent the afternoon sightseeing. There isn't a lot to see in Beppu, but the two main sights are the Jigoku Meguri "hell tour" hot spring parks and the monkey hill... Where I'm told there are monkeys living in the hills. We didn't end up going there, thats on tomorrow's agenda so I will keep you posted on that.  But the Jigoku Meguri tour was fascinating. Basically the name "Jigoku" means "burning hell". The tour consisted of 9 different themed hot spring sites that can be found in the Oita area, each one supposedly conjuring up different scenes from the Inferno as depicted by Dante. 

The first one is called Umi-Jigoku, or Sea Hell, aptly named because the deep cobalt water looks like the sea. They boil eggs here for consumption, they're deeeelicious. Unlike the kuro tamago(black eggs) we saw in Hakone last year, these ones look fairly normal but the yolks are a bright orange instead of plain yellow. Here is a photo of this jigoku from google images. In the spring and summer the water lillies that grow in the pond here get so big small children can stand on them and not sink. Seriously.

I won't post pics of all the other jigoku's but I will list them:
- Oniishibozu Jigoku (Oniishi Shaven Head Hell), named as such because the bubbles of hot grey clay look like the bald heads of monks
- Yama Jigoku (mountain hell) because the mud that bubbles up from the steam vents has formed small peaks over the years. This spot also has a mini zoo with an elephant, hippo, etc
- Kamado Jigoku, The Cooking Pot Hell, lol, which features a big red demon standing on a pot... Some feminists might agree that this would indeed be a form of hell for the modern woman...
- Oniyama Jigoku, Monster Mountain hell, where they breed crocodiles because they love the warm waters. Theyre really freaky looking,wait til you see the pics.
- Shiraike Jigoku, White Pond hell, because the water comes out of this spring milky white for some reason. Smells great too (not!)
-Chinoike Jigoku, Blood Pond Hell, the freakiest of them all because the red clay makes the water red, reaching temps of around 78-80 Celsius.
-Tatsumaki Jigoku is a natural geyser of hot spring water, it is really neat. Famous for the short intervals between eruptions.
How many is that? Was that 9? I think we skipped the Kinryu "Golden Dragon" Jigoku

Tomorrow we will go see the monkeys, and then I think we're visiting a small town nearby that brews European spirits or something like that. What a trip it has been so far. Hiroko-San keeps us busy every minute, she has adopted me as her granddaughter, everywhere we go she finds something else to feed me. Reminds me of my own Nana, she was the same way. We would be totally lost without her! Couldn't ask for a better guide and traveling companion.

K xo