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We arrived in Beppu after several train journies and ALOT of food from the trolley cart. We were ready and prepared for another mountainous hike to our guest house... however we were pleasantly suprised to discover it a 2 minute walk from the train station! Fantastic!
On first glance Beppu seemed like a pleasant seaside resort, the kind you would take your children to for a family holiday! But... on furthur inspection down the main strip of Beppu we uncovered the deep, dark secrets of its streets! We walked past 2 brothels and a strange building known as 'Soapland'. We tried to enter this building thinking it was a jovial water park of some sort where we could let our hair down, but we were apprehended as we walked to the door by a bemused Japanese man who spoke zero English. We deciphered from him through the use of mime that 'Soapland' was a place where the male species can enjoy a private dance... from other men! Hmmmmmm
We continued our walk and came accross a lovely American man who revealed to us that 'Soapland' was in fact a place where men go to be 'soaped' down by ladies of the night... and can, if they wish, pay for optional extras!! We were glad we did not make it into this building, however we could have made a bit of spending money if we had!
Our new American acquaintance pointed us in the direction of the next village along, Oita, with the promise of a vibrant nightlife and plenty of travellers! Great! So that night we ventured by train to Oita...
In reality the vibrant nighlife we were promised was actually just a whole streetful of brothels and we were the only girls on this street... except for the many ladies of the night of course, littering the streets! The American man told us to go to a small place called Bar Browns which we did. The prices were sky high so we just sat at the bar and smiled alot. There was a Japanese businessman sitting next to us who spoke no English so we decided to use our linguistic skills to strike up a Japanese conversation! This comprised of 4 words. 'Mushi mushi', 'eke', 'emo' and 'arigatto' translated in English to 'hello', 'station', 'potato' and 'thank you'. We repeated these words many times... until he left. He did offer us his left over cheese and a bitten piece of buttered bread. Which, of course, we accepted! We are on a budget you know! After he left we found out that the kind gentleman had infact left us over 3500 yen to spend on drinks! What a kind fellow! We bought three Harvey Wallbangers and some Nachos.
After he had left his seat was soon filled by a bald man. We discovered after much gestering, stroking of the shiny, bald head, and laughter (and being told by the English speaking barman) that he was a Buddhist monk. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get a drink out of him, but we did manage to extend our Japanese vocabulary list... adding the new words 'nani' meaning 'what' and 'saionara' meaning 'goodbye'.
The next day we decided we wanted to see the natural side of Beppu so we went to see The Hells. Beppu is situated near volcanic activity so up in the hills there is alot of steam coming out of openings in the ground because it is so hot under the earth. There are also alot of natural minerals in the water and earth so it is like a cheap spa! The Hells are boiling hot pools of water and they contain sulphur so they are all different colours. We went on a tour of the 8 different Hells and discovered that sulphur smells very bad... like rotten egg. We also popped into a Sex Museum along the way, and witnessed a very dirty Snow White doing naughty things with her seven dwarf 'lovers'... the sleazy side of Beppu was exposed again!
In the evening we wanted to go to a mud bath so we went to Tourist Information to get some guidance. We had our bikinis packed ready to go... however we were told that it is expressly forbidden to wear any sort of clothing AT ALL in or around the public hot springs and mud baths! We thought we would go for it anyway and try and sneak our bikinis on but when we got there it was very clear when we got there that we would have to go NAKED! We contemplated leaving and catching the next bus home but then decided we would brave it... so we dropped our towels, focused our eyes on the wall ahead and ran in! It was quite pleasant but incredibly hot! And we still smelt of rotten eggs the following morning!
On our second day we wanted to experience a sand bath on the beach so again we hopped onto the bus with our Beppu bus pass and were taken to our destination. We thought we would have to go naked again and we had prepared ourselves mentally for this... but thankfully they provided us with kimono to wear to cover our modesty from passers by on the beach. They dug a pit each for us and we were buried up to our necks in hot, hot sand. It was extremely relaxing with the sound of crashing waves in the background.
After we fancied a bit of an adventure, and seeing as we had our unlimited Beppu bus passes, we hopped on the first bus we saw planning to get off at wherever looked interesting. After about half an hour on the bus it suddenly dawned on us that we were no longer in Beppu but heading towards an unknown destination with the bus fare getting ever higher (why did it take us this long to realise?!). We tried to talk to some locals on the bus who didn't have a clue what we were saying... so we tried to ask the bus driver if we were still within the range of our Beppu bus pass but he just laughed in our faces alot. Luckliy though, he took pity on us and stopped at the bus station in this new town and put us on a bus home... and it didn't cost a penny! Thank God we're girls! The whole journey wasted over an hour of our day.
We are leaving Beppu tomorrow and are now off to have one last hot spring... we are going to try and sneak in the bikinis again!
Talk soon, ta-ra! xx
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