Hotel Umine Beppu

This charming village may be a highlight of the trip -　a touch of `old Japan` so elusive in the cities. Found another old ryokan where no one spoke English, but managed to get a room, and head straight to the onsen.

Decided to spend a second night -- in part to rest from ...

... up. Anyone interested in classes should definately inquire beforehand. (Sala de Usuki open 9am-9pm 0972-64-7271)

There is a shopping road called Haccho Oji in this area too. There are a bunch of souvenier shops and places selling soft ice cream. I wanted to try the miso flavored soft ice cream but it was too cold out!

From the visitors center you walk up Nioza Historical Road. The old stone streets lined with beautiful white washed walls,beneath
heavily ...

... from Oita City to Nakatsu on the JR Nippo Line , it takes about one-hour, and is a nice ride as you can buy food and drinks from a lady who comes by each car with a cart of snacks. Since there were two of us going round-trip we bought the special discount 4-tickets for 9,800yen total (thats 2450yen or about 25dollars for each ticket) It would certainly be a better deal with the JR passes but I cant get that since I am living in Japan ...

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... Lets go Johno?)

Overall

I ended up really liking Beppu. I relaxed somewhat. Although I did sleep in a lot I was happy with what I did get done. Would definatley return to Beppu again. Found a great Yakitori (chicken kebab) place (which I should say had the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in Japan working there, who was actually Chinese!!). Maybe why I ate there so much haha. There was a
large abundance of hostess bars and ...

Headed out early again to Aso from Kumamoto. Aso is situation within the caldera (crater) of the largest volcano that existed on Earth that we know of. And in the middle of it sits a few extinct volcanoes plus one that still spews steam and smoke.

Headed by bus up to the cable car station and walked up to the volcano, which was apparently giving off noxious fumes so they closed off access to the site, which wasted a trip for most of the visitors. Besides, the wind was ...

... on the big fellow yet. It's on my to-do list, really. He plays for the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix (say that 3 times real fast!) of the Basketball Japan League. Teammates often call him Ming Ming or Sun. When he dunks the ball, it feels as if the entire floor is shaking. He mostly lumbers down the floor, but has a soft shooting touch.

... left the country before decided to up-root and live in Asia until further notice. He has worked here at the hostel for most of February and next month moves on to Korea to take up a teaching post. Between baths I was huffing and puffing, tired of the small collection of tracks on my iPod - 6 months and only 500 songs! Seth has iTunes on his laptop and offered to add some more tunes to my iPod. That was at 5pm... I haven't seen him, his laptop or my iPod since...

... heat is used by the local residents for warming their homes, cooking food and they have the largest hot water system you can think of flowing right under their house! The 'Hells' is what they call some of the pools of extremely hot springs that sit bubbling away at around 100oC. Some of them are mud pools and some are hot water and sulphur. All however have been themed and commercialised to cash in on the tourist dollar. They have the Mud Hell (bubbling mud ...

... downtime, it's a prime place to sit back and soak up the waters. Before we rolled in though, we spent the previous day at an entirely opposite sort of locale. In the highlands of eastern Kumamoto-ken sits Aso-san, a massive, ancient caldera that features one of the country's most famous live volcanoes. After all the urban distractions in our previous stops, it was nice to have some time out in nature for a change. The scenery on the ascent from Kumamoto was ...