The Golden Week - Part 2

Previously on Jacks Japan Blog…

So Ive gone to Kyushu, had an awesome first day of seeing the sights of Fukuoka, tried some awesome ramen, and met some awesome people in the bars and clubs of Fukuoka. After an insanely busy first day, I finally got to sleep in my capsule hotel around 6 am…..

2 and a half hours later my alarm went off and I had to wake up for another day of sightseeing. I skipped taking a bath for the morning as there would be plenty of water at the place I was going to.

Beppu is a mid size town on the Eastern coast of Kyushu, and is famous in Japan for being home to a ridiculous amount of onsen (natural hot springs). Anyway, being a fan of onsen meant Beppu was a big draw for me.

The bus left around half 9 and we arrived about an hour late due to traffic (bloody golden week!). I was dropped at the bus station and figured out a way to get a bus to try and see one of the Jigoku`s. Jigokus, (which translate as “Hells”) are hot springs which are so hot that its impossible to bathe in them. Because of the extreme heat of the water however, there are sometimes strange effects (such as bubbling or belching jigoku). Anyway with the late arrival of the bus I decided it would be for the best to stick to just one jigoku and had decided which to prioritize far in advance.

The “Chi-no-ike Jigoku” (Blood pond hell) was famous for having red water, caused by the clay it bubbled on dissolving under the 78C heat. Anyway after a 20 minute bus ride, I got to an area far north of the town where the Jigoku was located. Upon entering I went straight to the hell to check it out.

It looked proper awesome, the red water had loads of steam coming off it and this coupled with the nature and stuff around made it look really cool. There was loads of people there unsurprisingly, and I managed to persuade someone to take a picture of me. After about 5 minutes I figured I had done the Jigoku justice and went off to find an onsen, having not had a bath yet despite being hungover and having had practically no sleep.

I had read in my book about an onsen nearby to the jigoku so headed straight there. It was about 5 or 10 minutes walk and was called Shibaseki Onsen. I had remembered to bring a towel but due to lack of time was unable to buy any soap in advance. Luckily the onsen counter sold some so I could buy some. At most posh onsen, towels and soap are provided, but in Beppu there are loads of small cheap ones which just offer showers and baths. Anyway this one was a bit more upmarket than some and luckily had some lockers I could put my stuff in. After changing into my birthday suit I headed into the onsen main building which featured 3 showers and 2 baths.

The onsen was fairly crowded, but not unpleasantly so. After a shower I finally got into the first bath and relaxed after an unbelievably hectic first day and a half. After chilling for a bit I got out and got into the adjacent bath. Unfortunately having not yet mastered Kanji, I was unable to read that this bath was a scoldingly hot bath. According to Japanese etiquette, you are meant to enter the bath slowly and gracefully, “like a cherry blossom petal slipping into a moonlit temple pond”. Unfortunately as soon as my foot hit the bottom of this lava like substance my immediate reaction was to run into it as fast as I could (I think inspired by those people who walk on hot coals). Eventually I hit the wall the other side and finally came to my senses that I should actually probably leave the bath before my legs boiled. I tried to gracefully walk back to where I came in and when that failed, ran like a headless chicken out of there. The hardcore bathers lying in the bath like they were in a luke warm swimming pool, were not impressed.

Anyway after that I went to the outside area where there was one more onsen and a sauna hut. I got into the outside onsen and was able to relax with the hot water combining with the not so hot air. After a few minutes I went into the sauna and lasted about 2 minutes before I had to come out (as you can probably tell Im a bit rubbish at the whole withstanding heat thing). I then got back in the bath and an Oji-san (the Japanese word for Grandpa or non descript old man), said in Japanese that my 3 minute sauna experience was not impressive.

He was a very chatty Oji san and I talked to him for a good half hour. The other bathers joined in the conversation as well and on the rare occasion I could understand something I managed to add my 2 cents. I asked Oji-san where he was from and he said he was from Beppu and that he visits this onsen everyday. He said something about the bath in his house and I think he said it was too small or something. Anyway having an onsen everyday seems like a pretty good way to spend your retirement to me.

After another half an hour or so of bathing I said my goodbyes, took a shower and left the onsen. One of the main areas for Onsen and Hells, Kannawa was just down the road according to my map so I set off towards them. After walking for a while on a ludicrously narrow non-pavemented busy road I realized it was a bit further than I realized, but soldiered on anyway. By the time I got there it was around 5 and I still hadn’t had any lunch. To my surprise, unlike the rest of Japan, restaurants seemed to be few and far between. Anyway I eventually found a fairly cheap place and had some “Katsu-don” which is kind of like a fried chicken steak with egg and stuff on a bowl of rice. This was pretty tasty although just as the food was given to me the owner of the restaurant gave me a load of maps and brochures and explained in Japanese where all the best onsen and stuff were. He also said I could get a hundred yen discount if I mentioned his name which was really nice but by this stage I just wanted to eat.

After a satisfying dinner I headed up toward the hells and discovered they had all closed by now which I expected. Not wanting to make the trip to Kannawa a total waste I decided to visit the “Beppu Sex Museum”. Beppu is often referred to as the Las Vegas of Japan with a penchant for the sleazy and the tacky. Anyway it looked quite funny from the outside so I decided to go in. The ticket lady was a 70 year old woman who had about 10 cats in her ticket booth. The cats were jumping up to the screen and the old woman had this big, slightly crazed smile on her face, making the situation all the more bizarre.

When I got in the entire museum was bathed in a red light. The exhibits started off as a variety of wooden phallouses and proceeded into models of couples in various sexual positions. There was one section which I think featured Buddha (well he was gold and a bit chubby) replicating some of the more bizarre positions from the Kama Sutra. In fact some of them looked more like wrestling submission moves than erotic poses.

Anyway after that there was a section of mannequins made up to look like famous Hollywood sex symbols, including Raquel Welch, and after that there was a movie theatre showing some 70s Japanese erotica (which was as funny as it sounds). The next section was about animals having sex and there was an awesome picture of 2 Giraffes doing it which proper cracked me up despite being on my own.

After having had my fill of Giraffe sex for the day I figured I should try and get another bath in. There was an onsen near Beppu station which I had read about so I decided to head there immediately. On the way there night crept in and suddenly there was loads of hostess bars, brothels and sex shops which made the likeness to Las Vegas suddenly all the more clearer.

I headed to Takegawara Onsen which I had decided upon because they do sand baths. Never having tried this before motivated me to go for it, and after a short walk I found the place. I tried to negotiate one sand bath and one regular onsen ticket which proved harder than expected. Anyway after a while I ended up in the changing room. The changing room had one other bather in it showering himself after his sand bath. I asked him if I should shower first and he said no but that I should wear the Yukata (gown thingy) provided. I put this on and headed into the sand area. This was like 2 huge sand pits, and there were 4 old women working there. Shocked at the way I had tied my Yukata, one of them untied it and put it back together on me. I was then told I was ready for my sand bath.

In the sand pit there were 2 people already in the sand, and empty “baths” for 4 more, although they looked less like baths and more like shallow graves. I was invited to lie down in one of the graves and did so. One of the old women then took a spade and shoveled hot sand on top of me. After a few minutes I was covered up to the neck and all of my bukkake fears suddenly surfaced.

The sand was hot, thick and dark and the idea was that you relaxed under the weight and the heat. The sand initially felt quite comfy, like a natural heated duvet, and I was able to sort of relax. After a while though I just felt a bit weird and wasn’t sure if I was relaxed or not. I stuck with it tho, until I had sweat dripping all over my face, and then requested to be let out. They told me I just had to stand up, which I made the most of doing in true zombie-rising-from-the-grave fashion.

After that I was covered in sand and so took a long shower. Afterwards I felt there was still some on me so I got into the bath as well. This onsen was a bit of a disappointment after the last one as it was a bit too hot, and the décor was nowhere near as nice. Anyway after about 10 minutes of chilling I left, satisfied in having achieved my goal of trying a sand bath. Whilst I would recommend it to those wanting to try something different, personally it wasn’t for me although maybe that’s just because I was doing it on my own and so had no one to chat to whilst lying there. I dunno, maybe then itd be more fun.

I still had half an hour or so before my bus so explored the streets of Beppu a bit. I bought some Onigiri from a stall which was pretty tasty and before long was back on the bus, and back in my capsule hotel.

I still felt a bit too sandy so decided to indulge in one final luxury hotel bath. As well as the baths, the hotel also had 2 saunas. One of them was called the Royal Sauna and featured a pool of warm water on the floor, and a TV on the wall. This felt proper cool and I enjoyed relaxing here. After this I headed to the rooftop bath outside which was made all the more awesome by the fact it was raining, giving a sensation of hot mixed with cool. After chilling a bit more I decided I should try and get a decent nights sleep for once (in the last 72 hours I had had a total of about 5 hours sleep, and had been ridiculously active during that time).

When I got into my capsule I suddenly didn’t feel that tired so watched a bit of TV (my capsule was complete with TV and a radio, how cool is that?). After seeing that there was some Dragons Gate wrestling on TV I watched an awesome match before deciding I really should get some sleep (I had to be up in another 5 hours).

At 7 the next morning I woke up and had yet another shower/bath/sauna to wake me up. I followed that with a decent enough breakfast from the hotel restaurant and then went to the bus station to get a bus to my next destination.

Hiroshima was a place that everyone had recommended as a place I just had to go, and all the guide books and websites rated it as an absolute must see. The bus took about 4 hours from Fukuoka and I was dropped in the city centre. Fortunately this was near the first sight on my list so I could walk to it.

“The A-Bomb Dome” is a building formerly known as the Industrial Promotional Hall, until the bomb dropped in 1945. Hiroshima was decimated but because the bomb exploded just above the dome, it was left in a ruined state but still standing. The city of Hiroshima decided to preserve it the way it was left as a reminder of the tragedy.

Anyway seeing it was pretty amazing, and gave a good indication of how the rest of the peace park would go. The Hiroshima Peace Park is also dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives to the bomb as well as having a really strong anti-nuke message. The “Flame of Peace” is a flame burning in the middle of a pond which will keep burning and will only be extinguished when every nuclear bomb in the world has been dismantled.

Anyway this was framed by an arch through which you could also see the A Bomb Dome in the background, and the cenotaph in which all the known victims of the bomb have their names written, in the foreground.

The Peace Park also had a childrens memorial dedicated to all the children who lost their lives to the bomb. The main draw of the park however is the Peace Memorial Museum. This is a museum all about the day the bomb dropped in Hiroshima and nuclear war in general. The museum left nothing to subtlety and was extremely moving, with accounts from survivors and pictures of the city before and after the bomb.

Its difficult to do the museum justice just by writing about it, but if you ever get the chance to go I strongly recommend it. The museum also strongly pushes for world nuclear disarmament and after seeing the effects through the exhibits, its difficult to disagree.

Thinking the museum would only take an hour, I had another excursion planned for the day, but even through skipping some of the parts of the museum it still took me 2 hours (partly due to the Golden Week factor). When I got outside the museum, the somber tone was disjointed slightly by the fact that there was a huge festival going on. There were about 4 stages around the peace park and each one had some dancers or musicians on, and the whole place was absolutely packed.

I was in a major rush now though so had to leg it to a tram stop, and on the way bought some Ikayaki (barbequed squid on a skewer). Luckily as I arrived at the stop a tram arrived. Hiroshima unlike most major cities in Japan has a tram network instead of a subway system which made it all the more quaint. I had bought a day pass for the trams as I figured Id be using them quite a lot.

My destination was Itsukushima-jinja which is a famous shrine on an island just off the coast of Hiroshima. To get there I had to take an hours tram followed by a ferry, followed by a bit of a walk. The shrine closed at 6 and not wanting to miss this famous sight meant that I needed all the luck I could get.

When the tram pulled up in the port for the ferry a ferry was just leaving, so I was actually able to get to the island by half 4. The islands name was Miyajima and the port town was pretty much dedicated to tourists with loads of Yatai with some really weird looking food. I had seen Hashimaki in Fukuoka but had not got round to trying it so I thought I`d give it a go.

Hashimaki is basically like a pancake thing filled with cheese that is wrapped round a pair of disposable chopsticks, then covered in sauce and ginger and stuff. This was well tasty and much needed after my pitiful lunch of just Ikayaki.

Throughout the port area and town there were loads of wild deer trying to hassle people for food. Unlike Nara these weren’t so immaculately groomed, but were still pretty cute. Having said that, on the ferry ride over there was a warning on the loud speaker that you shouldn’t feed them because they were dangerous. Anyway luckily they stayed away from me and my hashimaki.

After looking in a few shops I eventually found myself at the shrine. Itsukushima is one of the most photographed tourist attractions in Japan and is classified as one of Japans “three best views”. The shrine and Torii (gate) are built on the seabed of the island which, when the tide is high, gives the impression that they are floating.

Before going to a shrine you have to purify yourself by going through a gate, but in ancient times the island itself was considered a God so people were not allowed to set foot on it. This is why the Torii was built on the bay, so that people could approach by boat, and still purify themselves before they worshipped.

Because of my strict schedule I was unfortunately unable to see them “floating”, but it still looked awesome. Anyway the low tide meant I could go out and get a close up of the gate which was really cool as it was absolutely massive.

After taking a stupid amount of pictures I found that I had a bit of time left so went to explore the rest of the island. I saw another cool temple, and a 5 storied pagoda which also looked awesome and also managed to try some more Yatai food, this time an eel filled fried rice cake type thing (not a literal translation) . After that I decided I should head back to Hiroshima.

After a long journey I eventually found myself at Hiroshima station and finally had a chance to put my bag and all my stuff in a locker (I had been carrying it around all day). After that I took a tram back into the city centre to check out some shops. After some window shopping I decided it was about time I tried the food which Hiroshima is famous for.

Hiroshima-yaki is a version of the popular Osaka dish Okonomiyaki. I had heard that this was different to traditional Okonomiyaki and set out to check it out. Thinking in the same vein as in Hakata I decided to go to “Okonomi mura” which, like Ramen stadium was a theme park dedicated to the local cuisine. The building in was in central Hiroshima and was 3 floors comprising of 25 Okonomiyaki restaurants!

I walked through all the floors and checked them all out before eventually settling on one which was not too empty and not too full. The restaurants were all counter based with a huge hotplate stretching out on which the Okonomiyaki was cooked and served.

I took my seat and didn’t really know what or how to order so just said “Hiroshima- yaki” to the chef who laughed and said something I didn’t understand. The 4 people to the left of me didn’t have any Okonomi in front of them when I sat down, but shortly afterwards the chef came and put a flower and water based mixture in 5 pools in front of me and the rest of the diners.

With regular Okonomiyaki, the mixture features egg and cabbage already in it (well that’s how I make it), but this was Hiroshima-yaki so it was all a bit different. After the mixture had cooked for a bit the chef put some shredded cabbage onto the bases and then some green things which looked a bit like grass. After that he put some chopped leek on and this was followed with some squid on some and some shrimp on others. I realized the one on front of me had none, so I asked for some shrimp. The chef then put some bacon on and pushed the mixture down so that it became flatter, before flipping it over so the base was now on top. His assistant then put out some soba noodles in front of each mixture, and the chef fried these turning them into yakisoba.

After these were fried he then lifted the mixture and placed it on top of the yakisoba. While that was frying, he cracked an egg in front of each mixture, and spread it out to make it the same surface area as the mixtures. After a short moment he then picked the mixture and placed it on top of the fried egg before flipping the whole thing over and covering it in “Soosu” which is the traditional sauce for okonomiyaki, takoyaki and anything else yaki.

He then pushed the okonomis toward us and gave us instructions on how to eat them. We were given a minature shovel like implement and we were supposed to use that to cut them into small pieces and eat. Thankfully everyone else at the counter was having their first try (presumably they were all tourists like me), so I didn’t feel too nervous.

I wasn’t really sure if I was doing it the exact way I was meant to, but it seemed to be working, and unsurprisingly it was well lush. The addition of the yakisoba and fried egg was well good, and I was thoroughly impressed with this innovative way of cooking. After that it was about half 9 but I had to wait until 12 when I would take another nightbus, this time home to Nagoya.

Because I had a spare couple of hours I decided to explore the “entertainment” district, and found that there were absolutely loads of bars, pachinko parlors and video game arcades. Despite the melancholy tone of the Peace Park, Hiroshima still has an awesome party side, which I think is really cool. Anyway I decided to go to a bar that was recommended in my LP book and found a music bar called Mac which sounded right up my street.

It took me a while to find as it was on the side of a building where there wasn’t much else except for a car park, but when I got inside it was really cool. The bar was bigger than the average Japanese bar and had a ridiculous collection of CDs. They were playing Jazz when I went in and there were a few others who had come to the bar alone who were sitting at the bar smoking and drinking and generally looking very cool.

I sat down next to them, ordered a drink and after a while got chatting to the owner, and a couple of the customers who had gone there by themselves. The owner was a woman who was very passionate about music, and throughout the night put on some awesome tunes by Earth, Wind and Fire and also some Marvin Gaye. Everyone was really cool, and I got to speak some good Japanese which was different to the usual chit chat which I have pretty much memorized how to say by now.

After I had finished my drink and talked for a while I had to leave to get the last tram. I arrived back at Hiroshima station around half 11, and waited around for my nightbus to arrive which was about 10 minutes late. I got on the bus and tried to get some sleep for the journey back to Nagoya. On the way I reflected on all the things Id done and all the people Id met, and despite the shocking amount of money Id spent (lets just say I could have spent 3 days in Korea with the same amount), I felt very fulfilled although very much in need of a decent nights sleep.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully next weeks wont be so ludicrously long!

Peace out

Jack