Our first week here was deceptive. We were warned time and time again by people who were running the program, other long-term students and Japanese natives that yes, June is the rainy season.We had such a nice run of sunny days and pleasant weather.
Whelp...this week showed us what the rainy season means when you're almost 1000ft up a mountain. This is the sight that greeted me on Monday morning heading to class. Sitting up as high as APU's campus does, while we do indeed get rain, we also get clouds that sit their cottony bums right on top of us, shoving visibility down to as shoddy as 10ft. In an odd contrast to this is our classrooms, which seem to border on 'too bleedin' hot,' despite the cooler weather outside...it's odd.
Classes aren't at all bad, the pace is picking up a bit, and thus, so is the homework. Also, this week, I had my first meeting of my Legal Framework of Tourism class. The 2 previous meetings had been cancelled due to our professor being in Iran at the time for...I don't remember if he said. At any rate, it looks to be an interesting class, he at least is amusing: a New Zealander that spent a number of years working in London...makes for an interesting accent. So I get to have a class about what the framework of law that's behind the scenes when you get screwed by a hotel or airline taught to me by a sarcastic aussie. I love it.
Not every day's been crappy this week, Wednesday was quite delightful on the weather front, as seen here. Weather's clear, we get a really nice long view, sometimes clear across Beppu Bay to Oita City or the north edge of the bay.
The day's classes went by at a reasonable pace; we learn in C that we'll be having other teachers taking Yamamoto-sensei's place for the next ~week since she'll be in Paris for a conference. Unfortunate for her, she'd love to spend at least a month there.
With the weather as fortunately nice as it was, several of us had made plans to go down to town to find the used book/cd/dvd/game/everything else (almost literally) store by the name of Book Off, wander a little bit, and do some grocery shopping. We have our tasty and inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria, head back to the AP Houses, and meet up at the bus stop to head down the mountain.
The bus arrives and takes us down to town, we get off at our right stop and walk a few blocks down towards Book Off, and happen to notice the bakery that's situated out in front...called cram. I still need to go back there and try their offerings...
Book Off...hoo. Take your 'normal' used book/cd/dvd store (Ed McKays for the Raleigh/Greensboro people), and throw a room upstairs that has, well...just about anything else used. Clothing, furniture, appliances, gift sets, toys, jewelry, watches, purses, luggage...the list goes on and on. I found a light green yukata I may go back for...inexpensive, really nice, and apparently the color suits me quite well. Just gotta get a koshihimo and a good obi to go with it.
At any rate, I did find several good CDs by some artists Kevin introduced me to, one of the group CDs, and a few of the guitarist's solo projects. Great stuff.
We leave Book Off and head further south, aiming for the hyaku en shop, the Sega Arcade, and points beyond. Connor's not alone this time in pachinko playing...seems Malia's got the bug too; we ended up a bit delayed trying to get them away from their machines <___<;;
Wandering around near the Takegawara onsen, we went down one of the shopping arcades again, and opt to try a little hole in the wall food joint that looks cheap and tasty. This place was the proper traditional kinda joint, looked straight out of the 50s or 60s with the old movie posters on the walls, the food counter, and raised private seating areas with the tatami mats, low tables, and standing screens to separate table groups. Unfortunately, the menus not only have kanji that Jason and I don't fully recognize, but it's in the calligraphic script, which doesn't help.
Instead, Connor opted to ask the waiter if they had a teshoku (set meal of local specialties of the restaurant) for us to pool our cash and try. The restaurant, alas, did not have one, but agreed to recommend us a set of courses to fit within our group's pooled budget. Best decision ever. What followed was a really tasty 6-course meal consisting of a salad with fried potato strings, tempura chicken, tempura shrimp, an awesome kinda hotpot stew thingie, fresh-cut and seasoned fries (odd to see, but tasty nonetheless), and a pork fried rice course, 2 courses of which I neglected to get on camera. Dangit.
Quite pleased with our great hole-in-the-wall dinner, we depart; Jason splitting off to get back to campus for some ultimate frisbee (had I not needed groceries, I would've gone with), and the other 4 of us continuing to Beppu Station. On the way there, we come across a takoyaki (fried/grilled octopus meatballs, essentially) stand. This place looks like it literally was built up around the alleyway between the adjoining buildings; the back door of the tiny narrow shop opened up to the alley itself. However, we're finding that these little, homegrown, local-owned shops often have the best offerings. Still quite full from the dinner, I do not partake of the takoyaki, but Connor, Jessica, and Malia all hailed the deliciousness of them.
Also, while they were waiting for the takoyaki to grill up, I got a neat picture of the skyline visible looking towards the station and mountains:
Have I said how cool I think the locale is?
There's an upside, and a downside to going to the grocery store as late as we did in their day (it was ~6:30-7ish, most places shut down about 7 or 8 here): on the one hand, all the meats were half off since it was the close of the day, so you could get a great deal on some ridiculously good-looking beef (the marbling is so extensive it's damned near sickening), but at the same time, the produce section of the store was already shut down for the day. Alas. We resolve to find some recipes, some people with pots and pans we can bum, and come back to pick up some stuff for curry or other tasty and inexpensive meal options.
Thursday started off rather...unpleasant with the weather, but cleared up enough later in the day to allow for some frisbee tossing out behind the dorms. I've learned 2 or 3 new throws I'm still trying to iron the kinks out of, one of which is a skip-shot that can get some really good height on the rebound and looks plenty cool.
Today, well...wasn't as nice as Wed. or Thurs. afternoon. The picture at right is about the degree of visibility we got most of the day, barring the midday and late afternoon rainstorms that, while they pushed the fog down, also handily provided their own brand of unpleasant. The walkway stairs from campus to the AP Houses, for example, is certainly not a fun 71 steps (I've counted...they've pissed me off) to ascend/descend when they're soaking wet...at least I haven't fallen yet.
That's about it for this week, not a whole lot of interesting stuff to report as far as classes go. Tomorrow, though, is the start of our 2-day trip to Nagasaki, which promises to provide a lot of material to photograph and talk about. While I'm not thrilled that we meet in front of AP1 at 7:45 in the morning to climb onto a bus for 3½ hours, the walking tour and free wandering we get, along with 3 provided meals and what I hope is a real bed at the hotel, will be far and away well worth me having to drag my carcass out early.
Damn, today was fun. Long, but fun. I was woken up this morning by someone knocking on all the doors on the hallway, so I groggily, hacking and coughily, put on a shirt, slippers, and head to the kitchen to see what's shaking. All the while there's announcements going off every 20 minutes loud enough to wake the dead (perhaps that's what first woke me...I don't remember...) saying the International Festival's going to be starting at noon today over in AP House 2. Out in the East 1 kitchen, they're explaining that our floor's performing at 5:40pm today, and handed out signs for us to wave, and little pop-cracker fireworks for us to use at the end of the performance.
Thus armed, I return to my room, talk to Cass awhile, then head to shower and get set to head oot'n'aboot. As I'm about to head over to House 2 where the main stage, and all the big food setups are, I'm stopped by the sight I'm met with in House 1's common areas. A cadre of perhaps 12-14 old Japanese ladies are setting up and tuning electric versions of koto (traditional Japanese harp, imported from China and reduced in scale slightly...can google image, or if you've ever seen Kung Fu Hustle, it's the instrument the two triad's assault the local masters with). I help a bit with the setup, as I learn there's going to be a performance followed by an instructional period where you can learn how to play this classic instrument.
While I'm standing there, Becky and Adam come in, we all secure some seats right up in front of the tables where the ladies are going to be performing, and are then treated to the show. They play about a half-dozen songs, one of which I have the presence of mind to record. It's a wee quiet, despite me being right in front of them all since my camera's mic isn't great...it's meant for stills. The one I recorded was "北国の春" (Kitaguni no Haru, or [I'm fair sure] "Spring of the north country"). Very cool.
Zeff comes in partway through the performance, as does Matt, so once the instructional part begins we opt to head over to House 2 to see what foods are worth having. The main commons of House 2 is given over to the main stage, so we meander past it to the basketball courts out back; the main food pavilion. This was the line that greeted us once we made it through the morass of people...the exit from the main stage area's to the left of the awning. This large tented site had 3 separate lines with clearly delineated in and out lines (quite smart), with different floors' teams rotating out when one ran out of food to provide. Also out of frame were a yakitori stand, and another cart that looked to be serving pita pockets. Also seen parading around the cluster of people in line were various groups with signs advertising their floor's offerings (such as a 'host club,' where you go to talk to attractive people), or just standing around in their costumes from their event. Just a little odd at times...this guy was far from being the only one so attired...
Knowing we had the Izakaya planned for the evening, Matt and I get in the falafel line to get something started in our stomachs to act as a buffer, and 'cause hey...free food's free food.
20 minutes later, and several recharges from the kitchens for the falafel crew, we're about a dozen people from the front and they're realizing they're damned near out of food. Matt and I're fortunately in the section of the line that's determined there will be enough food for; lucky for the rest of the ridiculously long line behind us, another group brought out what looked to be batches upon batches of fried chicken. Needless to say that line filled up quick. I enjoyed my falafel though...they offered the choice of a mild mustard, hot sauce, or "Sudden Death Sauce." I, knowing full well that spice now would be very bad later, just get the normal heat...it was some pretty alright falafel.
Falafel in hand, we walk back to the picnic tables where a cluster of other SG people are (Summer Gateway, get it? I'm tired of writing that much every time I wanna mention them <__<;; ), and see what the plans are for the rest of the day. Matt heads back to his dorm to check with his floor for timing of stuff, Sam and a few others split out their own separate ways, so Jessica and I decide to meander through the building and see if we can find anything interesting to eat, or find on some of the floors.
Working our way over to one of the residence halls, we see a knot a people down by one of the kitchens. Among them is Shane, and apparently he, with the rest of the group present, had all subjected themselves to the Sudden Death Sauce, and were fervently trying to put out the fire...still some 20 minutes later. Now, when you have so many people on so many different floors making enough food to feed a decent crowd of people...there's gonna be aftermath somewhere. Turns out we happened across one of the ground zeroes for a cooking group, just before they all tried to tackle the massive chore of fixing their mess. Alas, the price of tastiness.
Heading back towards the central corridors, we see signs for a Ghost House that's being set up, but won't open for a little while yet. Luckily, as we're walking past the main stage, this group's performing. I don't think it's traditional kabuki; I'm not exactly sure what it was, but still...it was pretty awesome. The outfits were bleedin' awesome, and you could tell they'd put a good chunk of practice time into staying in sync. Following them was a quintet from another floor, 3 of the girls playing the Sanshin, a 3-stringed (the name means literally that) instrument not dissimilar from the banjo, one guy just for vocals, and a 5th on an acoustic guitar. They were pretty neat, but we were looking for something a bit different from all the musical performances one after the other.
By this time, the Ghost House has set up shop and is open for business, so we head on upstairs to give it a look. While it's about as hokey and as thrown-together as you'd expect for a 'haunted house' that is situated in a basic conference-type room that was immediately preceded by another event, it was still worth a laugh. 2 guys dolled up to be zombies (I guess?) would dart out of the exit door to surprise people in line, as well as through the house itself. One of 'em snuck up behind Jessica as we're watching the clips from Ju-On they're playing, causing her to jump and squeak, which I got a laugh at, then stuck around for some photos.
After running the gauntlet of what the International Festival had to offer, I head back to my room to relax and get set for the Izakaya later in the day. My floor's performing at 5:40, so I make a note to be back to watch what I've been hearing practiced in the kitchen every midnight (some japanese song, and Green Day's "Basket Case," which is kinda funny when sung by a bunch of asian-accented guys not completely in tune). However, something had other plans. Sitting at my computer, I start to doze, so I stretch out on the ol' bed-platform, and suddenly it's 6:30. Crap.
Oh well, time to get ready to meet people at the bus stop.
Making sure my camera's set and charged, mp3 player's good, I've got my bus passes, I head out to the stop, where a pretty respectable number of people are waiting already. We're standing around for the bus, shooting the s*$t and such, plotting what tortures we'll have to put anyone who skips out on this, despite signing up for it (Aya had to give a set number so the place knew how much food to make, so anyone who didn't show had to be covered by those who did >__>). The bus rolls up, and we pile in to head down to town.
It's a good half-hour bus ride from APU to Beppu Station, since one end's pretty well the start, and the finish being the other for the line servicing it. On the way, Becky points out "Book-off," the used book/cd/dvd/clothes store that Jessica'd heard about and we tried to find yesterday. Apparently they've yukata (summer kimono, lighter than the traditional sort) for ~900-1,500円, and even proper traditional kimono for ~2,000円, though some of the obi (the sash around the waist) they had are significantly more...as in 10-15x the price of the kimono.
Yeah, I'll just stick with the yukata, thanks.
Finally the bus reaches Beppu Station and we all offload. I'm lovin' the triple passes I can get at the co-op for 1,000円, the fare from APU to anywhere we've been in Beppu so far was 540円 one-way. It's nice being a student sometimes. We meet up with Aya in front of the "Shiny Uncle" statue (see yesterday), and realize that we're missing about half of the people who signed up to go. Luckily, we know that a good chunk of people were running late to our set meet time, and were gonna be on the next bus in 15min. Aya and Andrew stay at the statue to wait for the next load of people, and the rest of us head down to the restaurant. That's the sign for it, Uotami's the name.
It's another one of the real neat traditional style places; we go upstairs from the street entrance, enter through the sliding door styled after the rice-paper screens, and have lockers for our shoes just as WaraWara does.
This place is nice. Right upon entry, there's a glass floor inset into the surrounding hardwood that shows a mini zen garden-like sand circle below. By the small staircase up to our private room is a huge pane of glass that forms an artificial waterfall for both white noise, and a privacy screen for the table room behind it. Awesome. Our room's what I'm guessing is the largest private room of Uotami, 4 tables, a mirrored back wall, and a cool decorative floor inset with glass rocks down below.
We all claim our seats, with a final number of us coming up to 21 people, easily accommodated by the room, and start to peruse the menu. Aya had already chosen the food set we were all getting (she had to pick when she booked it, with the number of people expected): a several-course meal of salad, sashimi, kebabs, soups, rice, and so on. The rest of the fee was for the fact that what we were there for is not only referred to as an izakaya, but (at least for Kevin) the possibly more familiar nomihoudai, as the top of the shown drink menu states. This basically means that, once you declare a start time, it's 2 hours of all you can drink, be it mixed drinks, sake, whiskeys, beer, wine, or soda. This is gonna be a fun night with all the people we have there.
Our first course was a pretty fair sized platter of salad, followed pretty quickly by a bamboo steam basket-like platter of sashimi (sushi without the rice, more or less). Drink orders are taken for everyone's starting round, with Yumi explaining to my table what some of the kanji were, or what some of the drinks were. Once I deciphered the katakana for a lot of the drinks, I was able to throw out a lot of explanations of what some of the drinks were, or were apt to have. Nice having a hobby that can serve you when you travel.
The drink menu's pretty immense, the one I showed above isn't even the complete listing of all the offered potent potables. There's a crap-ton of sours made with myriad fruit juices, or as Becky later found, even the fruits themselves; she had a lemon sour that was brought to her with a halved lemon, and a little metal juicer so she could add more lemon juice to taste. Damn. Matt discovered much to his ecstatic delight that there was a Kiwi Sour (the boy loves kiwi), Mimi opted to try the Suika Sawa- (watermelon sour...really good), while I decided that what better way to start the 2 hours than with a little Suntory Time. Mmmm, good whiskey.
A great novelty to most everyone there were the Thai Tonics, not just because it was a rather sweet drink that it seemed everyone ordered at least once, but that it was blue. Nobody seemed to have ever heard of blue curacao before <___<;;
Matt was still pretty hungry, despite the salad, sushi, and wonton soup, so he claimed the remainder of the salad for his own, with a look that promised any challenger quite the struggle for claim of the platter.
Being the very nice place Uotami was, they had a pretty good offering of sake. Jason and Andrew, at the table next to us, opted to try some of the choshu offered. Much like wines back in the states (and here, as Connor's was evidence of), they provided a glass, and a little bottle/carafe for the sake. Of course, this meant the opportunity for some cheesy photos...definitely not the last of the night. Yet another course is brought out to us, this time it's tempura shrimp, with what was honestly a bit peculiar of a side that I wasn't expecting to see: fries and ketchup. Whelp, traditional or not, it was good stuff all around...we even joked with Yumi about it coming down to the last shrimp or fry, having a battle like the one from Kung Fu Panda.
Every table had their own call button for the wait staff for drink orders, but since there were a number of seasoned college drinkers there, and a large number of us anyway, so Yumi told us that we were able, and perhaps even preferred, to order 2 or 3 drinks at a time. Yep...photo times were to be had.
One thing that was provided at each place setting when we arrived was a little cup of a pickled spinach, which, after a little liquid innovation, allows itself, and other table elements, to be turned into photo-ops.
The shrimp head on a finger-tip speaking very elementary Japanese, while also funny in a ridiculously stupid way, reminded me much of the Sicily reception, and a large prawn that danced about on a forktop, then went for a swim in a water glass...
I'm running out of long blocks of text to accompany these photos, so these get to be simple:
Mayu and Aya on the left photo, Yumi and Becky on the right.
Winding down towards the end of the night, Aya mentions going out for karaoke after the izakaya. While this sounds really fun, I've still not much of a voice, and don't feel like spending the yen for a split of a taxi all the way back to APU. Masato, one of the APU buddies, and also owner of the hat Yumi's wearing above and Jason's doing his King of Pop imitation with, suddenly starts singing some Beatles. Jessica gets him to repeat, and we all get some video of him singing "Let It Be," but it's too short to justify uploading, so you'll just have to hunt me down when I get back if you want to see it.
Our 2 hours have run out, last call has come and gone, and it's time to settle the check. Turns out 2 people who signed up skipped out, upping everyone's share by a few hundred yen, which we all then decide they need to get some serious grief for, 'cause, well....we're mean, and we had to pay for them ditching. <__<
The last bus of the night's gonna be leaving in not too long, so Becky and I, who aren't feeling in the mood for more time/yen spent for karaoke/taxi, head off to the bus stop. Bus rolls up, we find Andrew on it (he walked all the way up to the station for some reason...), and takes us back to campus. About 3 hours later and I'm finally done sorting all this out and uploading everything, I'm about ready for bed.
Nothing big set for tomorrow, having had the past 2 days decidedly full of stuff; gonna take it easy, do laundry and homework...maybe play some ultimate frisbee in the evening.
We'll see how week #2 of classes goes...the pace is picking up.
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.
