May and I left Nagasaki a week last Saturday on an 8:40 bus direct to Beppu. After a scenic and at points very windy journey, we arrived in central Beppu at around 12:30. Hungry, we quickly found our hotel, the Ekimae Goto Onsen, dumped our bags there and checked out the nearby train station for restaurants. We settled on a steaming hot bowl of udon in the end. We then explored the town a bit, found a Korean restaurant, much to our interest and then got on a tour bus of the local rigoku or 'hell springs'. These are some of Japan's hot springs that you definitely do not want to bathe in. Too hot and too toxic. Beppu is famous for it's hot springs by the way. There are two types, the rigoku hells and the onsen, in which you bathe. Our hotel, as its name suggests, sits directly over one of these onsen, which we had the pleasure of being able to use whenever we wanted.
We decided on the Korean restaurant for dinner because May has been making me salivate for months whenever she talks about Korean food – hot, healthy and spicy, mmm. The owner was Korean, so May enjoyed being able to speak in her native language for a night, and I was happy because I had a plate of awesome food in front of me. The owner was impressed that I managed to eat all of the kimchi soup that May ordered for me because kimchi is used in Korean cooking to make everything super spicy. Being English however, I grew up eating Indian curry so a little bit of spicy cabbage barely registered on my Hot-O-Meter.
After dinner, we explored a bit more, shopped, took some photographs. What made my night though was spotting something that I have been looking for in Japan for four months. It was something that I specifically wanted to give as a present to one of my family members and here it was, in a small souvenir shop in Beppu, Oita-Ken. It was cheaper than I expected too, although a little awkward to carry ;-)Sunday started bright and early with a short train ride to Oita city, then a two-hour bus journey to Aso town in Kumamoto-Ken. From there we took another 40-minute bus ride up Aso-san (Mount Aso). We then took a cable car a few hundred metres to the top of Nakadake, one of the five peaks that makes up Aso-san. It was freezing - there was snow and everything - so we ran to take our first peek inside a volcano crater, got one of the Korean tourists who we met on the bus journey to take a quick photograph and then headed back down the mountain to a reasonable altitude. The photos we took didn't really do the spectacular landscape justice, but at least they have given you an idea of what I am talking about.
Cold, tired and hungry we made it back to Beppu at around 8pm. We did what anyone would have done in that situation: We went back to the Korean restaurant for dinner, into the open arms of the owner, and then soaked in the onsen at our hotel before heading to bed. Our bath was even more pleasurable as all the lovely food in our tummies hadn't cost us a penny. There was a Japanese man at the Korean restaurant who had had one too many sake's and on a whim decided to pay for the dinner of the two foreign girls sitting at the next table. Anything can happen.
After another quick dip in the hotel onsen the following morning, we checked out and caught our bus back to Nagasaki, squeaky clean but ready for a rest. It's amazing how tiring sitting on bus for hours on end is. I mean you're just sitting there, so why do you get off feeling like you need a good long nap?
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People at the hospital are sensing that our time in Nagasaki is coming to an end. We have had three invitations this week already. Last week we had three also. We had to only pay for one of our meals last weekend. Aside from the obvious financial benefits, I am really enjoying making the most of my final few weeks in Japan. The people here are just great. Generous, kind, attentive. I have made some really good friends. It's almost a shame that I am leaving so soon.
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