Beppu and Miyajima - March 20th

Beppu is famous for its numerous hot springs.



So the first thing we did was to go to a co-ed mud bath. Everyone's naked, but you can't see anything as long as your body is submerged in the water. No photos were allowed for obvious reasons, but let me share some classy lines a 'friendly' fellow bather said to me:

"If you didn't have a boyfriend (referring to Phil or Steven), I would help you put mud on your back."

(When walking over to another pool, he slows down to walk behind me because I am covering my front with a handtowel): "Your backside is all goose-bumpley."

"Oh, there's a mosquito floating near your boobs. I do understand how it feels though."

This is all in Japanese, so when I translated everything to the boys later on, they looked appalled.


Anyway, here's the bus stop you'd get off to go to this place, 別府温泉保養ランド (Beppu Onsen Hoyo Land). I give it 2 and a half stars. The murky water makes it difficult to avoid running into things or notice steps going up/down. Also, the floor can sometimes get too hot because it's all natural. I got some mild burns actually.




After spending an hour locating a meat bun store that one of the books recommended, we were replenished enough to continue our exploration of Beppu.

One of the main attractions of the area is called The Eight Hells -- pools of boiling water that have some kind of unique characteristic like having a vivid color. We managed to hit 3 of the hells.


Hell #1: 海地獄 (Ocean Hell)
This hell has a bright blue color.



Ocean Hell also featured Amazonian lotuses that only grow in hot spring waters in Japan.




Hell #2: 血の池地獄 (Blood-Pool Hell)
This hell has a bright red color.
Here are Phil and me looking devilish in front of the pool.




Hell #3: 龍巻地獄 (Tornado Hell)
This hell spirals up like a tornado. It's not active all the time, so sometimes you have to wait a bit. I think it shoots up for 6 minutes every 40 minutes, or something like that.




After enjoying the hot springs and hells, it was time to move onto Miyajima, a sacred island off of Hiroshima.

Here's the bento box (lunch box) we had on the bullet train:




When we got to Miyajima, we threw our things in our hotel room and hurried to 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Shrine) before the light-up ended at 11 p.m.




The madness that is traveling with Phil+Steven continues...

Cue slow-motion and dramatic music a la Amazing Race

Alright this blog is starting to look very disjointed Memento-style with posts from the past and present being posted in turn, but I guess I'm going to forge on.


The day we were supposed to ferry over to Fukuoka, you all know that our boat had to turn around back to Busan. Here's why:




We get back to Busan around 11 a.m., and the situation is grim. The next high-speed ferry won't leave until 2 days later. The regular speed ferry is already booked. We don't want to ride an over-nite cruiser. So we taxi over to the airport to catch the 4 p.m. flight to Osaka.

We get to Osaka and realize that we are not going to make it down to Nagasaki unless we take a 2-hour taxi ride from Fukuoka. We are forced to cancel our hotel (but thankfully did not have to pay a cancellation fee owing to the graciously understanding hotel staff), and come up with an alternative plan to stay in Beppu, entirely skipping Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Nagasaki. I guess they will have to wait until the next trip...

We got to Beppu past midnight... a whole day of traveling.

Seriously. Sucked.

Phil: "At least we got to go on the Green car (executive class) of the bullet train."
Steven: "Oh, shut your trap."

Proj Chopstix Mtg Decisions

1. We will cancel the 1 p.m. ferry (300 yen cancellation fee) and buy the 8:45 a.m. ferry.

2. Tentative plans in Kyushu are to leave luggage at a hotel in Fukuoka (19th), go to Nagasaki for museum and dinner, then go back to Fukuoka and stay night. Next day (20th), we go down to Kumamoto for the castle and cherry blossoms. If we can't see the blossoms, Tokyo should have blossoms too. Afterwards, come back up to Beppu for the hot springs and stay the night. Next day (21st), maybe do a little more hot springs, and then head to Hiroshima.