beppu

This morning we went back to that little Buddhist temple-turned-hot-spring for a sand bath! You lie down on a bed of sand and they shovel warm shovelfuls of sand on top of you (everything but your head) and leave you for 15 minutes. It was so relaxing. The old ladies doing the shovelling would come by a couple of times to make sure you were still alive and to wipe the sweat from your brow.

On the way back to the guest house, we saw a giant 天狗 Tengu head in the shopping arcade. I guess he's the mascot of the area. In any case, his nose was bigger than I was.

We then caught a bus and went all the way up to the 地獄 Hells, which are a series of volcanic pools. They are naturally cool-looking, but some of them are quite touristy. First we saw the 白池地獄 White Pond Hell, with the milky-white boiling water.　There was steam billowing from beneath the water and a strong sulfuric smell.

We then went up the hill to the 海地獄 Sea Hell, with its boiling (naturally) blue water steaming and hissing next to a lovely garden pond with lilly pads. There were 'onsen eggs' being boiled in the Sea Hell to be sold in the souvenir shop!

After that it was the 鬼石坊主地獄 Oni-Stone Monk's Hell, which is so-called because it had a bed of 120 degree stones.

Next to the stones were boiling pools of mud. The bubbles look like a monk's shaved head, hence the name Monk's Hell. It was so cool to see it bubbling away on its own.

The final hell we visited was a pool of red water, called the 血の池地獄 Blood Pond Hell. The water was deep red and they had left it pretty much alone (ie. they hadn't put any cheezy statues or silly gimmicks anywhere near). Unfortunately, we couldn't catch the geyser which went off ever 15 minutes, because of time constraints. But overall, a very interesting, sulfuric-smelling experience.

We hurried back to our hostel, grabbed our luggage, and made our way to the station to catch the 新幹線 Bullet Train to ... 大阪 OSAKA! We met my buddy Masahiro at 新大阪駅 Shin-Osaka Station, had some お好み焼き Okonomiyaki (well, I had オムそば yakisoba wrapped in an omelette, and went out for drinks. Exhausted, we made our way back to the hotel for a welcome rest.