Hidden Onsen, Karaoke, and World Cup

I'm getting behind here...or just more busy with classes, I'm not altogether sure x__x. Nagasaki 2 weeks past and I'm behind a lot of material. Gonna have to be doing some catch-up now, so lessee...first: last weekend.

June and July is the rainy season here in Japan (also monsoons in India/etc....same climate shift causes them both). As such, one thing that's becoming a very common sight in the hallways of the AP Houses is myriad umbrellas drying out in the halls. Also to be had outside of AP1 is a number of regularly-rotating market-type deals: the farmer's-market-like one we saw our first Friday here among them. My personal favorite of these that I've discovered in the rotation is a bread shop. Fresh-baked loaves of bread with more than the 5 slices found from the co-op or the Beppu Station grocery store, bacon bread (braided/knotted bread with bacon interwoven), and a host of delicious sweet breads with fillings such as nuts and honey, whipped cream, or chocolate cream, some of which are made to be almost too disturbingly cute to eat. I mean, seriously, look at the winking bear face and tell me you'd not pause for at least a second before biting it's cheek off.

 The week following Nagasaki, we realized we had a weekend coming up with nothing planned. So, Jessica, Raimey, Connor, Becky, Adam, and I decided we'd take the opportunity to go out and find the 'hidden' onsen out in the Myouban area we'd been told about from the lady at the tourist information office all those weeks ago. The Wed. of that week we had originally had a karaoke outing planned, but given that one of the Japanese classes had a test and a lot of homework due Thurs., it got pushed off to Sat. evening. None of us wanted to miss that, so we resolved to get an early start to the Myouban excursion, given there was a good bit of walking associated with finding them.

Before the weekend though, there was a Summer Gateway scheduled activity: a Tea Ceremony. Given how many of us there were in the program (37, 38?), and that some of us had other classes we registered for above and beyond the Japanese intensive course, we were split up into 2 groups. The first group went the Tues. before Nagasaki, the remainder of us had the ceremony Fri. of last week. The tea ceremony room (there's also a weekly club for it) was held in the "Hut of Peace Spirit" (can't find the third kanji's reading, so the translation has to do), a very neat, very traditionally styled Japanese room, replete with the tatami floor, shoji-screen walls, etc. Very neat little place.

Unfortunately, the group before us was a little too camera-happy, apparently disregarding requests of the sensei leading the Tea Ceremony, such as to only photograph her when she was sitting sieza, and as a result we had to leave ours outside. So...these are the only 2 I was able to get in before we were told to put the cameras away. Damn. We're instructed on the proper protocol for a tea ceremony, where and how to sit on the tatami, how to eat the proffered sweets, how to make and drink the matcha, and then finally given the opportunity to see the proper way to enter the tea room, look about, and announce yourself to your hosts that you're ready to be served. (I found the link to the official photos taken by the Summer Gateway staff people, go here.) I'm certainly not a fan of green tea (or tea period), but I managed not to make any unpleasant faces. My knee certainly wasn't happy with me for the amount of time it was made to be held in sieza though...didn't give the greatest feeling for the next day.

Saturday rolls about, 8am bright and early I'm up with my bag laden with munchies, maps, towels and such. I meet the others in the lobby of AP House 1, then the 6 of us walk out to the main bus stop in front of APU proper. Unfortunately, the Kamenoi buses we need run a different route than our normal Oita Kotsu buses, and also don't take the multi-passes we can get from the co-op. On the other side, the run was only 250円 one-way, so no biggie.

The bus drops us off at Jiyouzu-mae ("in front of Jiyouzu") the other side of the main highway that runs by APU, and we step inside for a quick breakfast before walking. Something that becomes very noticeable once you step off the bus at this stop is a smell somewhere between popcorn, and sulfur (it was...odd, that's the closest approximation). Given we're in a very active area for geothermal vents and such (hence the multitude of onsen in the Beppu area), it's to be expected you'd run across vents with this...interesting smell to them. The huts shown at left were one of the local utilizations of said vents. Inside, they're steaming down bath salts which are sold as a regional specialty, if you're unable to frequent the onsen in the area regularly to make use of their beneficial effects. Another way the vents are used at this particular location is...well, culinary. Jessica has a picture of one she had on her blog: it's a hard-boiled egg steamed in the onsen vents, giving it the peculiar color. They had these available at Jiyouzu, but I took a pass on them >__>;

Fuel for walking consumed, and some directions provided by one of the ladies there (who warned us to be careful on the walk due to the rain and the trail), we set off down the road. Looking at the map (every map I get here is on a different scale...it's a scoche annoying), Jessica spots the manji (卍) symbol (the Nazis reversed this swastika) along the way to the onsen, which here is indicative of a shrine being in the area. It's close on the way, so we make the slight detour off the trail (which was more of a road, which was not what I'd expected), and walk up by some houses and such to a parking lot for the shrine, further up the hill. Where we stopped though, we found this little memorial stone...I'm not entirely certain of which. Also running alongside the road we walked up was another sidewalk that led up to what appeared to be a waterfall and a secondary shrine area.

There's a little railing to prevent falling into the drainage ditch, but not letting that detail get in the way of a shortcut, we hop down to the other walkway and head up to have a look. As we get up to the waterfall, there's 3 little hutches seen here, with offerings of incense and such inside. Out of the frame to the left of the picture at left were dozens upon dozens of little Buddha statues. The guess was that the area was a memorial shrine for children who'd died, thus a guardian statue for each one put in place here. The shot below has some of them, but there were too many to fit in the frame. They didn't appear to be all that old of statues, either .__.

The day's starting to pass a bit quicker than we'd expected, so we set back on the road uphill. Our first aim was the further onsen, 鍋山の湯　(Nabeyama no Yu). It's situated at the top (or near to) of the mountain, which was a good 2 mile trek through the rain on a sodden trail. Again, I say 'trail,' but this was much more of a gravel road that several cars passed by us on heading back downhill (Hebi n Yu has parking), so we're stopped more than once to stand by the side of the road and let them go on by. I was a little miffed by the clouds that sat right on us, otherwise there would've been some fantastic views to be had. Ah well, can't always get what you want, I guess.

This was located far up in a quarry-like area, and was a 'mud bath.' Not a mud bath in the sense of a thick pool of mud, but a hot spring rich with a muddy mineral mix that clouded the water, but felt fantastic. As we neared the area, we passed by another international (German, by the accent, I'd say), who let us know it wasn't much further a walk, and what to look for. About 200m further up the road, we see the fence he told us of, follow the split uphill a short distance further, and are greeted with the view of the quarry and plumes of steam flowing off the landscape.

There are 2 separate pools to Nabeyama, we picked one, stripped down to bathing suits, set up umbrellas and tried to find the driest place to leave our bags, shoes, and such, and hopped in. These aren't nearly as large an onsen as any of the more commercial bathhouses, as such it was good we just had the 6 of us. Any more, and not only would have walking with that many been...irritating, we simply wouldn't have fit in the springs. Uphill a bit from this spring we spotted some baskets used by people to cook noodles in the spring's hot water; also feeding into the spring itself was a hose of quite cold water to temper the spring's natural heat so you don't burn the s#*t out of yourself soaking in the upper pool. As luck would have it, as we're in the onsen, the rain stops...only to start up again as we leave to head back downhill to Hebi n Yu. Figures.

The walk downhill is faster, if steadily growing from spitting rain to a more annoying proper light rain, but we make it back down to the road split, and trek off towards　蛇ん湯 (Hebi n Yu). Being lower on the mountain, there's some much cooler scenery along this route. Trying to hold a camera still for a shot like this whilst managing an umbrella took 5 tries to get one that wasn't blurred to hell...rawrface. Heading further uphill we come to the realization we're walking along a road paved through a bamboo forest, which was actually really spiffy. I spotted a felled piece of green bamboo someone had cut down, and someone else had run over part of with a car, and made myself a walking stick, which was nice with my crappy knee in its annoying brace still sore from sitting sieza in the tea ceremony the day before <__<;;

Hiking along, we come across a concrete tori set up alongisde the path. Being the curious lot we are, we step inside to get a closer look at the little shrine set up. I didn't get any pictures closer for some reason, but there was a large block with a fish shape cut out of it, forming a basin in front and to one side of the main little mini-shrine.

Walking even further uphill, we come across a chain-link fence that's completely rusted out, and thus offers no barriers to the curious adventurers we fancy ourselves as. Walking out along the concrete structure contained behind the fence-that-no-longer-is, we see what looks like a dam that, towards its center, has a large gap between it and its mate on the other side. The supposition is that the wall we're standing on is a landslide retaining wall, with the hole in the middle to allow some flow so as to not cause the eventual collapse of the wall itself. Given that, even on the low side, the fall would be injury-inducing, whilst the other side would likely be fatal, we retreat to the road and continue up towards Hebi n Yu.

As we reach the onsen itself (or rather, uphill overlooking it), we see that we're not alone in our Saturday enjoyment of the free, natural hot springs, as an older Japanese gentleman was tending to the baths, setting the cold water feeds, and having his bath. We exchange greetings, he lets us know which pools are good and nice for bathing, and we soak as he finishes up and heads out. Hebi n Yu was really nice, having 5 separate pools to bathe in: 4 of hot water, ranging from 'lobster pot' closest the source to 'comfy bathwater' down at the lowest, and one pool of damned near frigid water. The thing to do is clean yourself off with buckets of water from the spring and soap, then soak in the pools. The reason for the cold bath is that, well...you dunk yourself in the icy water, then hop into one of the hotter 2 pools. Not only does having soaked in one before submerging yourself in the other mollify the shocking temperature difference, but it's meant to help your complexion by opening and closing your pores. As you can tel in the photo, the rain decided to be drizzling a bit. At least at this onsen there was a little shelter built to change in, store your clothes, and even had a clock mounted on it.

The day starting to go, and our stomachs making note that they're empty, we dry off, get dressed, and head back downhill to Jiyouzu for lunch. As we descended the mountain, the rain slackened somewhat, and the clouds cleared out a bit, allowing for a better view of the valley we just climbed up from. In view below was the third 'hidden onsen' we were aiming to hit for the day, 鶴見の湯 (Tsurumi no Yu), presumably so named because it's situated behind the Tsurumi cemetery. Unfortunately, with how long a walk it would have been, how much we'd walked already, and how little time we were growing to have before the evening's festivities, we nix it from our list. Perhaps later, on a free day, we'll be able to make it out there. (there's also a golf course you could see from there...too bad clubs are way too heavy to travel with...)

We get back down to Jiyouzu, all pretty decently wet still...feet at least (barring Jessica and her Wellies she was teasing us with having <__<), and make our choices from their menu for food. There's a number of tasty options, I ended up choosing an onigiri (rice cake) of fried rice (it had encountered soy sauce somewhere, and had bits of egg in it), and 温たまカレーうどん (ontama kare udon [curry udon w/ an onsen-hard-boiled egg served on top]). Adam also ordered this, and good lord...I was in flavor country.

Before we leave, seeing we still have a good bit of time having removed the longer hike to Tsurumi no Yu, we note that, a very short distance up hill from us is another onsen, 山の湯 (Yama no Yu). While it's certainly not hidden, nor mixed (meaning 'tis nekkid time), we split up to soak and clean up so we're more prepared for the evening ahead.

We return to APU, split back off to our respective dorms to dry off, change, clean up, and air out bags, then gather with the rest of everyone who was going to karaoke at the bus stop. Jessica and her entire floor were going to a tabehoudai (all you can eat in 2hr, like a nomihoudai is drink) at a korean bbq place, but she resolved to meet up for karaoke hijinks after. The remaining crowd of Summer Gateway people debark from the bus down at the Oita Kitahama bus station, and walk down past Youme Town to MosBurger for some fuel for the night of drinking, karaoke, and soccer.

This was my first excursion to MosBurger, and I'll say I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised. The place is a Japanese burger chain, and I was able to get a rather tasty double cheeseburger and melon soda on the cheap. The drinking crew of the SG program are apparently frequent patrons of the place on their booze-outings, and at least Dan has had his order screwed up in some fashion every single time he's been there. In a way, it's comical, because whenever he gets even slightly miffed (happens often, so I hear), he turns a pretty good shade of red.

The next stop after MosBurger was the good ol' konbini Lawson's, allowing people to buy some canned libations to warm up and not spend as much on the bar drinks at the karaoke joint. Getting back up the main thoroughfare of Beppu, we meet up with Aya, who tells us that there's another group already inside in one of the other rooms (some SG people, and people from a 6-week program from Georgia Tech). We get our room set, order our first round of drinks, have Aya give us a quick demonstration of how to find and queue songs, then it's a long night of fun. The rooms are nice and soundproof (or close enough to), so you're not bothered by the people in adjoining rooms belting out tunes as loud as you are, nor are they by you.

To those who have never been to karaoke (and you're missing out on a fun experience, I gotta say), your room has a ring of couches about a central table, 2 video screens on which the words to your selected songs are displayed, some little handheld consoles linked to the screens and the library of tunes to select from, and of course, microphones. A very short walk outside the room leads you back to the bar where you can order more liquid courage, or have the establishment order food. (This place was above a mini-mall that housed a pizza joint, the thing on the wall behind Connor's head in the left photo is a pizza menu.)

Our group had the group that went out and partied a lot more, but also had myself and Matt, the 2 oldest guys in the group. Now for the most part, Matt had Kouta singing along with him on the classic rock stuff, but after I put Bohemian Rhapsody on the queue, and showed that I too knew, and was raised on, the classic southern rock, he and I were belting them out quite happily; Sarah at some point decided the two of us were to be dubbed the 'dirty old men.' Old I see...but I'm not sure where the 'dirty' came from, no matter how fitting it may have been. <__<

In addition to the classics, a plethora of Disney tunes, Japanese pop, rock, and other flavors of music, the younger Matt (there's 2...a total of 4 Matt's we've found that we regularly encounter...) asks me what the 'Big Butts' song was, and if it was on there. Of course Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" is, and I place it in the queue. The problem? I was the only person there who knew it in its entirety.

So, it rolls around, I take the mic, and have no problem whatsoever (with about 3 whiskeys in me) in letting fly with the whole of "Baby Got Back" solo, not missing a single beat. At the song's conclusion, Sarah just kinda looks at me and asks "Does your fiance know you know all the words to that?!" Me: "Yep, 'course she does." And immediately following this exchange, the door opens up and Jessica shows up, the one other person who knew and would've gladly sang "Baby Got Back" along with me. Alas, hijinks opportunity missed.

One sore point of the evening was 2 people taking the little songputer, finding a bunch of absolute crap poppy songs they didn't know the words to or have any intention of singing, or in Connor's case, just being a dick for fun's sake. As a result, there was a lot of skipping of songs, a number of ones we wanted ignored, and a period of ~20min where some of us sat out playing darts while the crap worked its way out of the queue.

Towards the end of the night, some people started to head out so they could catch the last bus back to APU. Having decided that this was gonna be the one night I stay out all night bar-hopping and seeing the USA-Ghana game (that started at 3:30am here...), I'm one of the steadily dwindling crowd that stays at the karaoke bar until our room ran out at midnight. Since most of the 'riff-raff' had disappeared, we had more of our run of the songputer, and queued up such good stuff as "Sweet Home Alabama" (one of the 3 Skynyrd songs on there, "3 Steps" not among them...grr), which the entire room ended up singing, with a few people standing up and waving lighters throughout the performance. Also as the time ran out, Matt (older one) and I closed our evening there with some Metallica, AC/DC, and Alice in Chains, which did hell for our voices but was damned fun anyway.

Our karaoke reservation ran out at midnight, but the soccer game didn't start until 3:30am, leaving us with a huge hunk-o-time in the midden. The first stop was a little hole-in-the-wall ramen shop next to the 68 Bar (owned by an American named Matt...one of the 4), where we had some excellent gyoza and some onigiri to get us through to 5 or 6am, and commenced further wandering. Walking through one of the shopping arcades, Matt saw a sign for a 24hr onsen. Not feeling like walking with the rest of the crowd to...wherever they ended up going, Jessica, Raimey, Matt, and I pay the 200円 for vending towels, pay the little entrance fee to the automated place, and split off to the respective sex sides, and kill an hour soaking and shooting the shit.

Roughly 2am we meet back up with the rest of the crowd, having had a good soak, some vending machine ice cream (not 20m from the onsen, that's marketing) or sports drinks to replace what we sweated out. Turns out one of our number's gotten into somewhat of an argument at one of the bars (Dan, surprise...), so someone's sent in to recover him. Instead, we find out he's there with Aya and one of the other buddies, and has managed not to get his ass kicked, so we leave word for him to meet us over at the 68 bar.

Arriving back at the 68, we go in and pay our yen for the nomihoudai Matt (owner) is having for the game's duration, knowing the crowd he'll expect. Getting there earlier, we're able to claim some good wall seats and tables, as well as our first round before more people show up. The photo here is one of the two TVs set up in the narrow bar, but gives a decent idea of how many people ended up packed into the place. The game gets underway, and the next 2 hours are spent with new rounds of drinks, trips to the bathroom, and decrying the state of the US team's defense...or lack thereof.

I think the looks on Jessica's and Matt's faces about summed up how we were feeling at 5:30am, when it was most assuredly light outside the bar.

Game over, nomihoudai also ended, we split up into taxis to get back to APU; I think a few people said they were gonna stay up and drink another hour or 2 away until the buses started up again...thankyeno. About 6am we get back to AP House, whereupon I'm able to rant with Kevin over aim about the game, the sheer amount of text I was outputting a pretty decent sign of the amount of whiskey I had in my system at the time.

Whelp, like I said, I've done it once, I don't need to repeat the performance while I'm here. It was a bleedin' fun Saturday, but with how tired I was and sleeping away most of Sunday (no hangover though), I don't quite see how the crowd that does this on a regular basis manages to do it weekend after weekend. Ergh.