Sunday, March 23:

[I'm writing this on a slow computer with js turned off, must remember to update later]

Well, after that last entry, I had to run quick-smart to make the shinkansen. My knees almost gave way as I sprinted to the station, up two flights of escalators and finally made it into the train (with Charee already waiting inside), a couple ofseconds before the train whistle and the train pulled out of the station! Five seconds later and I would have missed it for sure! Poor Charee was almost having a nervous breakdown, as she was already on the train and I was the one with the details about the inn we were staying at in Beppu. We had to take a Hikari superexpress to Kokura then change to Sonic express to Beppu. All up the trip was only 2 hours (an hour each train). We found our minshuku easily, only a couple of minutes from Beppu JR station. Admittedly, we were quite nervous about staying at another minshuku after the last one, but discovered that this one was very nice indeed. Beppu is quite famous for its onsen (hot springs), and the minshuku had their own inside, and free! The name of it is Minshuku Kokage. Beppu is quite a nice town though, right near the coast. It has a nice feel to it. We arrived around midday and our room wasn't ready, plus it was raining, so we dropped our bags at the inn, got something to eat, then went to the tourist info desk at the station to see what to do. Charee wanted to go to the animal safari, but it was quite far away, and the few buses weren't running in a timely fashion for us to make it, so we decided on the 8 Hells of Beppu instead. These are 8 hot springs for viewing only, such as piping hot water (100C+), bubbling mud baths, geyser etc. It was a bit painful in the rain, and we had to catch local buses, but we managed it. It wasn't too bad tho (Y2000 for all 8, or Y400 each). There was a cute kitty at the bus shelter (that I thought was a bit sickly) which took a liking to me and curled up on my lap while we waited for the bus. It liked my stale beef jerky too. We returned around 5pm, checked in (very nice room with private bath/toilet, TV, couch, fridge for Y7650/night) then went for a bath in the inn's onsen. It was pretty hot (53C apparently)! Afterwards we went and had dinner at a local korean bbq (yakiniku) then retired (watching an Arnie Schwartzenegger movie in japanese). After we went to bed the TV mysteriously turned itself on by itself (giving us flashbacks of the previous minshuku), but I think it was because I was messing around with the remote and accidentally set the timer (that's what I tell myself anyway!). We decided to unplug it just in case, but if it went on again we were going to check out immediately! :o

Monday, March 24:

We decided to go to Usuki, a small neighbouring town, to see the Stone Buddhas (Y550). The weather was fine which was good. We took a local train to Usuki town and had a look around there, seeing castle ruins and a few other things, such as old samurai residence (which we couldn't find definitively). We then had to take a local bus to the Stone Buddhas (bear in mind that the local bus drivers don't speak or understand any english). We weren't sure if it was the right bus so we asked an old japanese dude also waiting at the bus stop, apparently he was also going there. We made it there okay and had a look around. The Stone Buddhas are pretty cool, carved out of rock, there are 4 clusters of them. We got a little lost on the trails (go figure) and at one point we came across a big something carved out of rock when suddenly a huge spider came literally bouncing out of the jungle and tried to go up Charee's leg. I shouted (she thought it ws a snake, there were lots of warning signs about snakes!) and jumped up and down in a frightened manner (which I found quite amusing) and the spider ran away. Boy, it was a big baster tho! And the way it came jumping along the ground was quite unusual! Afterwards, we were going to go see some limestone caves but found out they were quite far away (about an hour) and with the last bus back to Usuki at 5:30 meant that we'd only be able to get there to turn around and come back again. We also discovered that the next bus back to Usuki was also that last bus at 5:30 which meant a 3-hour wait!! We saw the old japanese dude talking to a taxi driver so went and talked to him about all this (Charee does the talking generally, her nihongo is better than mine). He was a nice old dude and he offered us to share his taxi back to Usuki (at his expense) so we agreed and went back to Usuki with him. The taxi dropped us at a pagoda there, and we all went to take a look. The old dude knew quite alot about it (he'd obviously done his reading) and while we were pondering some mysterious-looking swirly kanji (chinese characters) on the temple at the pagoda, another old japanese couple came in. Now this old guy started telling our old guy about these kanji, and of course me being a gaijin tending to attract attention, the new old people asked our old guy about us and before you know it we were all having a big conversation. We found out that our old guy was from Hiroshima an his name was Nii-san, and the other old couple was Mr and Mrs Mashino, from neighbouring town Kitsuki. Now, we all joined up and went sightseeing in Usuki together! This was a very unexpected turn of events, as we were going to go from Usuki to a hot spring in Beppu. After we'd all visited a couple of places together, Nii-san took his leave and Mr and Mrs Mashino offered to drive us back to Beppu, as Kitsuki where they lived was on the other side of Beppu from Usuki. Of course we accepted, however in further conversation somehow we got invited to their house in Kitsuki! So off we went in their car. It was quite a long way to Kitsuki tho, and we made a stop at a local mountain water spring where they filled large water containers from their car. The water was very fresh and tasted very nice. Apparently there are several of these "water outlets", where the water is continuously running and anyone can get it (if we had one of these in Aus we'd be rich!). Mr and Mrs Mashino told us alot about themselves, that Mr M worked for Mobil but had retired 10 years prior (at age 57) and got a big payout from the company upon retirement (which is the japanese way), that they met at Mobil, that Mrs M stopped working at age 26 to become a housewife, that they owned 2 houses (one in Kitsuki, the other in Chiba) and that they had 2 daughters (who live in Chiba) and 2 grandkids. Mrs M had remarkably good english, so communication was quite easy. We soon found out they were also quite fit (they both play tennis multiple times a week) when we arrived at Kitsuki and they showed us an old part of town where samurai used to live (lots of hills). Here, another coincidence happened, as we were walking along Mrs M saw someone sh knew who happened to be the caretaker of the samurai residence, which was now closed. However he let us in and gave us a personal private tour of it, with english commentary (a rare treat!). After that we went to Mr and Mrs M's house, which is very nice. It's a big house on a hill in the country, with views of the sea on one side and mountain vistas on the other. They gave us tea (and Charee a box of green tea to take home) and we talked some more before they drove us back to Kitsuki station so we could catch the train back to Beppu. After arriving back we had dinner (izakaya), then a hot bath and retired. What an extraordinary day it was!