12 Hours in Beppu

Second Friday in Japan, I've officially been here over a week. I certainly feel better off now that since the program's started, I've gotten to meet a lot of people, and since we've set up a lot of stuff on FB and the like, we're able to plan stuff and do things together. Good stuff.

Yesterday was a little rough, those on the ol' FaceSpace saw that I've been fighting off a bit of a bug. One of the girls had no voice this past Sunday, and it seems like it's making the rounds among the rest of us; late Wed. evening I felt my voice starting to go, and while studying/doing homework with some other people from the various levels (Jason and I answering a lot of questions since we're the advanced students <__<;; ), felt the telltale signs of feverish fun. Since I can tell that the only thing that'll help me from there at that moment is ibuprofen and sleep, I head back to my room. Walking the bridging hallway between East II and East I of AP House 1, I started shivering. Yep...not a good sign, but it's one I've seen before. Advil and straight to sleep, I wake back up sometime in the middle of the night and the fever broke...no more shivering, and I'm starting to cool off. I wake up and the fever's completely passed, but I quickly realize that I, in fact, have no voice, my body aches (though the 'bed' did little to aid that, I think), and my head hurts. I make it through the morning's classes, Yamamoto-sensei seeing that I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and being quite understanding of it all. Lunch time rolls about, after which I head back to the dorm after acquiring some throat medicine (Japanese meds are the shiznit), take one, and lay down to stop aching for about an hour before the afternoon class....
20min into the 3rd class of the day, I wake back up, realize I'm not gonna be in time, and konk back out to heal.

This morning I'm much improved: my head doesn't pound when I cough, and though it's not back entirely, my voice is certainly improved. This is quite good, as the Beppu Scavenger Hunt is slated for the day's activities in place of class, which promised to be an entertaining outing forcing us to work as small groups to interact with locals to achieve certain goals. Despite having no classes, we still have to meet at the APU rotary at 8:40am...rawrg. I ran into Shane and Sarah on the walkway out, and we head over to the knot of people that was the Summer Gateway Program. We all draw a slip of paper out of an envelope, confirm who we are, then we board a bus down to town.

The slips have one of 5? different kanji on them, so it's not hard guess we just drew lots for our teams for this competition. Everyone piles onto the chartered highway bus, and we take off from APU. This is the view we get everytime we leave and it's not cloudy or nighttime. It really reminds me a lot of Sicily, since it too is a small island sort of place, with a close juxtaposition of mountains and coast. Everybody's on the bus asking around to see which team each other are on, and of course the trash talking begins nice and early.

The bus pulls into downtown near Youme town (the mall-like apparatus), and we all debark, following one of the APU buddies running the event. About a block away from the main road we find our start- and finish-point, one of the 88 local onsen (hot springs), a really cool classic one by the name of Takegawara. They also offer one of the local specialties of Beppu: a sand bath, where the patron is given a yukata to wear (think a kimono, but single-layer...like a bathrobe kinda), lays down, and is buried in hot volcanic sand up to their neck for 10 minutes, followed by a soak in an onsen in the next room.

We all go in, take our shoes off (many traditional places still have you do this, it's considered polite in homes you visit), and head upstairs. There's a nice, huge (by Japanese standards...still a decent sized room for 30-40 people to fit in with no cramping) room upstairs that looks as though it could be used for small-scale plays, as there's a raised stage-like area at one end with the rice paper sliding walls (I forget what they're called...). The hallway leading to this room is also home to a meter+ bamboo sphere seen below, and the scrolls to the left were along the back of the room. No, I'm not sure what they mean, I'm not familiar with the kanji, much less am I able to easily read the calligraphic style used there >__>;;

We're split into our respective groups and explained the aim of the exercise. Each group has a mix of people from the various levels of Japanese, so there's a mix of abilities present; each group also got one of us Japanese C people. Packets are handed out containing a map (which I immediately commandeered, and still have...love mah maps), some flyers for APU's 10th anniversary, and the list of objectives. The maps are blank, so to find everything we need to find, we have to talk to the locals. Every group is paired with an APU buddy as well, but they all had strict instructions to stay back and not overtly help us, nor offer any direct aid.

Thus informed and prepped, we head back downstairs en masse, and are given about 2 hours to complete as much of our list of tasks as we can, earning as much points as possible by said tasks, and photos of the bonus point items available. Among other things, one item was to ask 8 different people for some colloquialisms, and their meanings...all in Japanese. I can't talk, 3 of the guys are all in Japanese A, so the one girl from Japanese B who pretty well self-taught herself speaking got to ask a lot of the questions, with me translating signs or providing unknown words and responses when able. We figure that an easy task is the 'group photo from the top of Beppu tower,' so we head northward to the ginormous landmark that stands well up above the rest of the skyline, buy our tickets for the viewing platform with the provided yen, and ride up the 17 floors. Photos taken, we start working our way back down through town.

Next stop was Beppu Station, home to the bronze statue we need to take a photo with. Several people knew where this was already, and as it was one of 2 places marked on the map already (the other being Takegawara), we've an easy time finding it. The statue's called "Shiny Uncle," who was apparently somewhat of a philanthropist who loved doing stuff for kids, which I guess is why there's a little child oni (demon...it had horns!) hanging from what looks to be his cape...yeah, Japan.

 Right next to it was another objective, a little hand-washing mini-hot spring the title of which escapes me, but can be seen below:

From there we walk across the parking lot, and find a few taxi drivers taking a break. The girl who's in control of the objective sheet asks them for another local saying, and I think 'who better to ask where to find small local shops and places than taxi drivers?' I hoarsely ask them where we might find both Akiba Jinja (shinto shrine), and a local shop with a long name that escapes me, having them show us on the map where we'll find them. Thus armed, we walk a good ways south towards Akiba Street, passing by an elementary school in a shrine/temple grounds on the way. Another of our tasks was to get the names of 8 of the local onsen, so we prevail upon the school ladies there for some info. We also needed a picture with them, which they were rather surprised at, seeing as we were interested in a photo with them, and not the kids. Nice ladies.

Continuing down the little back alleys, we beheld some otherwise...hidden sights, such as many...erm...'service' locales, for the businessman seeking release. The funniest of these was the first one we came across, as with the one girl (Nicole?) and I in the lead, I heard Melody (our assigned APU buddy and one of the program coordinators; she's from Michigan apparently) say something along the lines of 'watch out!,' but I don't remember which language. As we turn around to see what she means, the reason comes into view. Some of the other guys were having a fine time hamming it up and being the stereotypical college lad, joking why Melody and the other APU buddy knew why this place was there, etc.

Moving on, we reach Akiba Street, and sure enough, as the taxi drivers directed, Akiba Jinja. Photo secured, it's a short walk down the street to another alleyway which we haven't covered yet (a good option, since the bonus material includes the uniquely designed manholes found only in Beppu), back up to Nagarekawa St., home to our final stop and objective. There's no good signs for it, and it's not a shop that really stands out, so I ask for the directions sheet and start comparing kanji on signs. Turns out the last location is a little sweets shop that's been open for several decades. Our final objective secured, and running out of time, we return to Takegawara. Everyone's gathered back up, we make tallies of all our bonus pictures, turn in our sheets, and head upstairs.

There's the obligatory smack-talking amongst us as the buddies and directors are tallying everything, then they finally come up to the audience room. Point totals are listed off, 120 for one team, 230 for another, 500 for yet another...and my team steamrolling in with 830+ points. The overwhelming majority (as in like...80%) of which came from Matt's 153 photos of different manhole covers taken...no wonder he was always at the back of the group, or wandering across the street as we were talking to people...

For our prize from winning: a free little hand towel, and a "Spaport." The towels are a fairly practical provision, as most public restrooms don't have paper towels, and also having a smallish one to take with you to an onsen is a handy idea. The "Spaport" is a little passport-sized booklet, to be used whenever the bearer visits one of the 88 different onsen in the Beppu area. Get a stamp from each of the onsen, you're an Onsen Master. Yep...novelties with no aim other than completing them for completion's sake...I love it.

From there, a chartered minibus is available for those unfortunate few souls who have classes on the 3rd period of the day; the rest of us split off into our own groups to do what we will with the rest of the day. One group of girls went off to shop (which they've done nearly every day so far...in the same store <___< ), another group of guys went off...well, I don't know where, while a final knot of us were bleedin' hungry. Fortunately for us, not only was Korean BBQ an easy consensus, one of the APU buddies there that day worked part-time at one of the 2 bbq places within walking distance. Wooooo~ Just shy of a dozen of us walk the few blocks down to the restaurant, find out that, bags and all, we can cram 11 people into a tiny Japanese elevator, and go for food.

Now, I for one had never been to a Korean BBQ place, so I was quite excited. On our buddy's advice, we ordered some of the wtfhuge plates'o'meat to split among everyone. The charcoal, rice, and platters of delicious former animals arrive at our tables (neat raised platforms with sunken spots under the tables...looks like the traditional Japanese table setting thing), and we get to cooking. Beef, chicken, pork belly, pork...from another part, and another cut of beef...all with 2 different provided sauces (one vinegar-based, the other soy sauce-based), and accouterments such as cabbage- and lettuce-leaves, some kickin' spicy bean paste, and little dessert mochi balls (pounded rice cake) with red bean paste. For just 1000円/person, that was a damned good meal. Not one I could regularly afford, but still...mm mmm.

Following lunch, some people opted to head back to APU to nap, or what have you. A half-dozen of us decided that we were going to make the most of our free day and free bus pass back to campus, and figured a good first stop would be a return to Takegawara for an onsen experience. Jessica, Raimey, and Connor all decided to try the sand bath followed by an onsen soak, while Zeff, Shane, and I felt cheap (100円 for a normal bath, 1000円 for the sand one), so we just went for the normal soak. We're directed to the male bathing room (most onsen have separate male/female bathing pools, some have shared ones but require bathing suits since families also use them, and a very small number have shared baths which can be enjoyed...au naturale), and figure "whelp...when in Rome."

Despite what the general take on Japanese hot springs are, it's just a lot easier to not be awkward about it, because the natives you're sharing the bath with couldn't care less. So long as you take that approach to it, it's a nice kinda place, if you enjoy soaking in a natural rock-lined pool of very, very hot water. We also learned that, for future visits, we need to remember to bring along our own soap. You can just make do with rinsing your body off with water from the onsen before taking a soak, but it's better to properly soap and wash, then soak after.

Being really bleedin' hot water, you're only supposed to soak for 10-15min at a time. I'm still recovering from the fun bug, so I'm done after the first 10min, sit outside the pool for awhile cooling off, air drying, and talking w/ one of the APU buddies as well as one of the other Japanese guys there; we're all practicing our Japanese, and just talking, finding out about local onsen, things you should and shouldn't do, and basically learning more about stuff we were blissfully ignorant of.

Dried and dressed, I head back out to the main room and go sit on one of the raised tatami mat seating areas to cool down while waiting for everyone else. Zeff, Shane, and Takuro (one of the APU buddies) eventually come out, and we all end up talking about movies, traveling, and general stuff that we're all interested in. Jess, Mimi, and Connor eventually come out, all rather red-faced and glad to be in cooler air, thank our hosts and the people we've been chatting with, I collect my first stamp, and we head out. Shane opts to head back to APU at this point, having had his first onsen time, and is done for the day.

Jessica'd heard there was a used clothing store somewhere near the station, one that either shared space with, or was near a used book/cd/dvd store. We're all on board for cheap books/music/movies, so we head back westward towards Beppu station. As we're walking out, we cross an arcade (shopping, not game) that I'd been down part of during the scavenger hunt. Connor wants to find a pachinko spot and give it a shot at least once (I still say he's an aging pachinko addict in training :P), so we leave him in one for awhile while the other 4 of us go and wander. We go all the way down to the end at Kitahama St., and stop in a tourist information office that happens to be there. The lady working the info center gives us some maps to the local area attractions, local onsen, and further information about how to find several onsen out in the Myouban area past campus. Natural, free onsen, separated by decent length walks through the Japanese mountain countryside. Hell yes we're doing that some later weekend.

We collect Connor again, and continue on our way to Beppu station. Down to the next main road, Nagarekawa, we move along it westward. We don't make it but perhaps a block, whereupon we see a Patissiere across the street. Sprinting across the road to avoid traffic and sate our sweet teeth, we head into the shop. It's a very quaint little local shop with handmade everything; it's very cool. As we're perusing the case of exceptional looking sweets, the owner of the shop comes out from behind the counter, asks us to come over to the tables they have set inside, and provides us with a sample of one of the teas they make. I'm unfortunately not a fan of tea (quite unfortunate for living here for 2 months...), but it's an interesting kinda coffee blended tea. We all pick out the treats we want: Connor got the Framboise (I'm hoping the French is right, interpreting it from katakana's a wee difficult) seen above, Jessica and I both tried the Caramel Mont Blanc, Zeff helped himself to a safer-looking shortcake (the boy's not too adventurous, we're working on that), and Mimi got the chocolate parfait I neglected to take a picture of. (Yes, that is a Sesame Street spoon on my Mont Blanc...I actually didn't notice that until about halfway through my delicious food)

As we're all enjoying our really, really good desserts, the owner comes back out again, this time with a little box of some sweets, telling us that it's a gift for us. It's a really cool looking box of little mochi cubes dusted in a bitter chocolate powder, which he then drizzled with a pouch of honey that the package comes with. Good lord, it was tasty, and man...that shop was awesome. I so need to go back there with Cass, the place is phenomenal.

Our tasty side trip completed (such a wonderful impulse stop), we continue down towards the train tracks, as we discover we're well south of the station itself. We find that the most direct way to the station from where we happen to be is, well, under the tracks themselves. The tracks are elevated perhaps 7-10m, leaving ample room below for a line of shops to be situated in the area beneath. We all walk down through first a line of shops catering to pets; a grooming salon, pet supply stores, and even various pet shops themselves...I could buy a chipmunk! The next cross street starts a new subsection of the under-track-shopping-block, this time groceries. Far better prices, and far better quality than the co-op or any of the other grocery stores we'd seen thus far, we all resolve to find some recipes, come back, shop, and pool our resources to cook some inexpensive, damned tasty meals.

Yet another cross street and we're up to just south of where Beppu station proper is. In this portion of sub-track shopping, there's a proper, full-size, full-service grocery store. I found some native peanut butter, curry bread (finally!), some delicious little chocolate danishes, and a Suntory Highball whisky cocktail...in a can. Yes, that's right...you can get pre-made cocktails in cans here, as well as an ample supply of good-priced alcohols in the regular grocery stores.

Working further into the mall area beyond the grocery, there's a bookstore that we all peruse for awhile, and I happily scour the manga section to find Battle Angel Alita: Last Order issues 13 and 14 (it's only been released to 12 in the states, and perhaps 6 months between releases -___-;;), the combined price of which was approximately what one of the US releases would be >___>

There were a lot of other nifty things to be had, such as the little split curtain for use in doorways to say, a kitchen or bath for 1,050円 (good deal by my estimation...they're hooj), which I might buy at a later date. We all head outside, and see the used bookstore across the parking lot. It's a tiny place, with narrow aisles between the packed shelves of manga, and all browse more. Zeff was digging through the music/movies section and found what looked to be a vinyl Beatles Anthology (possibly CDs, but they did also sell vinyl), for the delightful price of 72,000円 (ouch.). We then wander a bit through the Best Buy equivalent next door, and opt to go to WaraWara for dinner, also in the same parking lot of Beppu station.

WaraWara was a really cool restaurant, whereupon entering you remove your shoes, step up onto the raised hardwood floor, deposit your shoes into the provided lockers, take along the matching metal keykard (spiffy), and head to your secluded seating areas, with nice dividing walls or curtains to provide privacy and quiet from other diners. Each booth also has its own little remote call button which lets your waiter know you're ready, the pressing of which is followed by a little tone and the unison calls of "Hai Okyakusama~" (Yes, honorable guest~), followed shortly by the appearance of a waiter. Everything's provided a la carte, all quite inexpensive (we ate for ~525円 apiece), and tasty too.

Much to Zeff's delight, they offered pizza here (he lives on the stuff back home, which is why it's hard to broaden his horizons...he was happy as a pig in s#*t when he found microwaveable pizza in the Beppu station grocery), so we ordered some, as well as some yakitori skewers, with Jessica opting to try some chicken gizzard skewers, and pork tongue/livers (as she called them, 'nasty bits'). Connor, Jessica, and Mimi also split an order of takoyaki (octopus meatballs). We ordered a few more things as our time there progressed, listening to the 90s music that was playing on the overhead sound system. Some great nostalgia, some old pop stuff we wished we were able to forget...oh well, it can't all be good.

Some people were gonna be staying in town for the Beppu Tower 1 year anniversary party, but with it running from 10pm to 5am, necessitating a taxi back to APU (we're a ways from town), I was one of those who decided that no, thanks, we'll be going back to sleep. We catch the next bus out (it's dark at 8pm here, it's honestly a little weird to me), and on the way back Connor's reading one of his new acquisitions: a kid's manga. Given the simplicity of the story, furigana given for any of the kanji, it's a great way to learn the language...you get to see everything as it's used, and are able to form better associations. Very handy. Reaching the APU House bus stop, we get off the bus and start walking back to the dorms. Waiting at the bus stop back to town is a fair sized crowd clearly aiming to do some 'pre-gaming' in town before the Beppu Tower bash an hour and a half off.

I come back to my room, relax, find out that I've kinda squished my strawberries a bit in my bag carrying them about (they're tiny here, and a wee on the expensive side, but damned tasty), and stow away all my groceries.  I've got a somewhat respectable looking cabinet of food that's not just instant noodles and junk snacks going, which I'm quite happy with. Once we start having regular cooking get-togethers, I'll be able to populate it with more tasty goodness, and have a nice 2 months.

Long update today now that it's all  done, I'm glad I split it up from the rest of this week, and decided to post now instead of after the Izakaya tomorrow. Leaves me all the more room for stuff about the International Festival and the Izakaya itself.

Until next time!