In the early stages of this adventure we circled the dates in early July when we would be kid-less for a few days, hoping that we could get away for a short trip and a few hikes. Ignoring the rainy season, we decided to go south to Kyushu.
We made Beppu, a famous onsen town, our base for a few days. As soon as a train pulls into the station, a high female voice announces, "Be-PUUUUU! Be-PUUUUU!" to general merriment. We found a hotel/ryokan downtown and explored a bit. Alas, the first impressions of the city weren't great. The oceanside near downtown is a mess of concrete and garbage. Our otherwise quite comfortable hotel (complete with its own private onsen, one of which was lovely) was smack dab in the middle of the "pink zone" in the city, with hostess bars and other mysterious sexy businesses surrounding us. Many of the pink bars have hawkers outside who seem to both try to entice customers inside and keep an eye out, and the feeling of being watched as we strolled around was unnerving.
Beppu is known for its "hells" or Jigoku, open air pools of hot water in various colors, plus geysers and pits of bubbling mud. We visted the Chinoike jigoku, which features a large pool of rusty water at 150 plus degrees F. Walking on to our next destination, we found an amazing vista of the northern part of the city, which reminded me of depictions of London in the 18th century....but here it was just steam rising from the many hells and onsen.
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