Golden Week 3: Kagoshima and Beppu

We didn't arrive in Kagoshima until about mid-day, then got a bit lost finding our hotel. We did, however, wander past a post office on our way there, so I got to mail off the batch of postcards that some of my readers will have received long ago by the time this gets posted. There might even be a new batch on the way soon, we'll see. At any rate, after dropping our stuff at the hotel, we quickly reached the conclusion that Kagoshima wasn't as cool as places to the south, so after lunch we hopped right back on the train to continue on to Ibusuki, a beach resort a couple hours away on local trains. While the beaches were nice and had funky-shaped stone things just off the shore that were incredibly fun to climb and sit on, the real attraction of Ibusuki was another onsen. This one was right on the beach and featured a volcanic sand bath. It was a little concerning to see the signs warning us about the risk of scalding if we stayed in the sand too long, but really it was quite comfortable. As soon as I was covered, I started feeling the blood pounding in my hands and feet. Took a little while to convince myself that that was nothing to be concerned about, but once I had the sand was very relaxing. From the sand, we went into a normal, four-bath onsen, with the only difference being that this one had a cold bath. A little dizzying on the first change, but after that switching between hot and cold made both much easier to stand. We also went into the sauna for a bit, but between the heat and the elevator music they had playing inside, we went back out to the baths pretty quickly.

From the beach and onsen area, we went hunting for food and ended up running to the station to catch the last train back to Kagoshima. Though Ibusuki had been throughly closed for the night, Kagoshima station was still fully alive when we got there. We rode in a clear gondola on the ferris wheel and got a view of the whole city lit up for the night, particularly the bright lights of the ever-present pachinko parlors. Once the four of us who had ridden the ferris wheel got back down, we joined the rest of the group in the neighboring arcade for a couple rounds of drums and guitar, then went out for dessert at a place we'd seen from the top of the ferris wheel and headed back to the hotel for the night. Since it had come up, possibly that day, that I had the full season of Firefly with me, we started our showings that night and all ended up going to bed much later than we'd meant to.

The reserved tickets were for relatively early the next morning, so we all checked out promptly. Harrison, Melinda, and I decided to forsake the reservations and take a somewhat slower train through Miyazaki on our way to Beppu, intending to stop there and get a souvenir for Melinda's Miyazaki-born host mother, but it was raining when we got there so we just bought a convenience-store lunch and continued on along the coast line to meet up with the others in Beppu. It took us a couple extra hours to get there, even without spending time in Miyazaki, but we did enjoy the views out the train windows on the less direct but more scenic route that we'd taken. Before getting to the hotel in Beppu, we were sucked in by a used book store, where we each got a couple books of children's manga in Japanese, on the theory that they would contain easier words and have the readings written in for at least some of the kanji that we wouldn't know.

By the time we did arrive at the hotel, it was getting towards dinnertime. The whole group of us spent a little time exploring the central part of the city, then ended up getting dinner at an udon place at the top of the central mall. The udon was good, but dessert not so much. There were very tasty-looking soda floats in the window, one made with coke and the other with melon soda. Now, melon soda is delicious, and so is vanilla ice cream, so I figured I'd try something new and get that instead of the coke float. It looks like it would be tasty. I can imagine the two tastes going well together. Turns out, though, that when you combine that particular sort of artificial melon flavoring and ice cream, it comes out tasting like vegetables. So that didn't get drunk. I got myself a peach Calpis on the way out as consolation. After dinner, I had to be responsible and study for the midterm that was going to be out that evening. I also managed to get help and finish the problem that I'd been stuck on all week. When everyone else got back, I put the books away and we all watched a few more episodes of Firefly before going to bed.

The next morning we took a bus up to the Hells, an area in the hills outside of Beppu where geothermal hot spots cause various interesting effects in pools of water. We paid for entry to one that had blood-red water, then snuck in through the bushes and a poorly shut gate to see a geyser that shot a few meters into the air once an hour. Our timing was fairly good, so we got to see not only the geyser, but the people gathering for it and then crowding it with cameras and camcorders as it erupted. By that point, though, we'd decided that the entrance fees weren't worth paying and since none of the others seemed easy to see without paying, we made our way back to the bus stop to take us to the main tourist area in the hills. At that point, we weren't able to reach consensus on whether to visit the sex museum or not, so the other girls went in while the guys and I wandered around a bit, seeing a steam vent, another of the hot springs which had a relatively low fence, and a cool place right in the main square where the underground heat warmed up rocks in front of a bench, so that you could heat your feet. Probably nicer in winter, but still comfortable. From there we went to lunch, then took another bus a little bit farther back to look for the bamboo craft museum. We couldn't find it, so we split up again. Lawrence had a train to catch to get back to Kyoto before his JR pass expired, and CJ and Janet went with him so that they could get back to the hotel early and nap. In the meantime, Harrison, Melinda, and I went back to a playground that we'd seen while searching for the museum and spent maybe a couple hours climbing on the jungle gym and throwing a frisbee around. Got some strange looks from the parents and grandparents, but the kids didn't mind having a few more people enjoying the playground. Wasn't exactly crowded anyways.

We had to get back to the hotel, too, since I still had my exam to take. I went and did that while everyone else took a nap. I didn't do so well as I could have if I hadn't been traveling and taking it on a computer rather than a piece of paper, but I knew most of what I was doing and got somewhere near done within the set time, so good enough. I promise I'll start caring about classes like that again when I get back to Stanford. Maybe even in time for exams, we'll see. At any rate, when everyone else woke up from their naps, I was finishing up my exam, so we went out for dinner and then celebrated by returning to the beach they'd discovered the night before and set off (for them) more fireworks. There was a convenience store right across the street that sold huge packs of fireworks, so we bought one and spend a couple hours trying out all the different varieties of showers and launchers and spinners and poppers that came in the pack. Then, just for good measure, we exploded the extra lighters. When we'd finally run out of things to burn, we returned to the hotel for the night and watched a little more Firefly. Not so much as usual, though, since we had to wake up in time to get to Fukuoka the next morning.