Kakusuien 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 ...

... station) that are a must-see for Usuki visitors. Since I had seen the Buddahs before, and I had been to Usuki town at night for the bamboo light festival last November, this time I went to the town during the day. The walking tour on the English map was the perfect way to spend a few hours in Usuki, and could easily be combined with a biking trek, or a bus trip to the stone Buddahs. (See pictures for bus information, taxi services etc. on visiting stone buddahs. The stone ...

... center are places to enjoy water activites. You can probably get to the the Yabakei "Aqua Park" (097-954-2655) by bicycle. It is open year round for water-skiing and wakeboarding but as it is one of the few spots in Japan to do this the reservations were booked for the weekend. We stopped by anyway and they let us ride on the boat so we got to see locals doing wakeboarding up close. They were pretty goood. The West Japan Open ...

... like a business and a new product. Basically you could have an amazing product to sell that you know will do well within its market but if you don’t promote it correctly it will fail to make an impression; well the same sort of principle can be applied to you. You could tick all the boxes and be the ideal candidate for a job but if you don’t come across well in the translation of your CV then you have no chance of ...

... next one. I never used to be such a huge Rocky fan. But now I am addicted!!!

I Rode a Bicycle up a Mountain

You may be asking yourself why did I mention Rocky, Well, I would never have made it up the terrible mountain side if I hadn't seen the movie the day before. I tried to go 4 kilometers by bicycle to some big tourist attractions in Beppu called “The Hells”. I didn't realise it would be all up hill the entire way (Beppu is ...

... cold, despite being nice and sunny so most people were quite happy to snap a few photos from afar and leave. Especially for a group of Californians (school trip?) who were biking around Kyushu. The leader forgot her wallet at the hostel, jumped onto the bus without any idea which stop was the one she wanted and had no way to communicate to the bus driver her intentions. Unable to put up with the awkwardness, I ended up offering her directions--you'd think it'd be ...

... 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.

... train one stop to Beppudiagaku to try the popular Shonin-ga-hama sand bath by the beach. After dropping my pants on a unsuspecting lady (Offensive Item No 2.) I ducked outside in my yukata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukata to lay on a pit of black sand. A lady with a lacrosse scoop then covered me in the warm sand. "I'll be back in 15 minutes," she said. Half an hour later I was still lying there. The sand is heavy on the chest, it was a little ...

Aujoud'hui j'ai parcourru les sources thermales de la region de beppu. Il y a les jingoku : source extrement chaude ou on ne peut pas ce baigner , mais on doit payer pour les prendres en photos. Un peu une anarque pour les touristes, mais c'est bizarre car au japon, la majorite des touristes sont des japonais. Puis les ofuro ou rotemburo, qui sont des bains interieurs ou exterieurs. Encore la, il faut payer de 100 yen a 2000 yen. Tout depend de la popularite et du ...

Last night's dinner with Mr. Uzaki was great. You might notice I write a different name today, I realized that I had been using his first name by mistake. In Japan you usually write the surname followed by the given name on business card, but on the English side of the card they write it in the European manner, a thing I hadn't picked up on. We went to a style of Japanese restaurant called Izakaya. In an Izakaya you ...