my swanky accomodations

#1 - Here's the room where I slept (have sleeping bag-will travel!).
#2 - the view out my window (from my sleeping bag)
#3 - the view of the tokonoma in my room (also from my sleeping bag vantage point)
#4 - the friend I didn't sleep with (YEA!!!) As we were out for a walk, my (two-legged) friend and I found this HUGE mukade feasting on a cockroach. I am SO glad we didn't have any visitors like this at the ryokan!

one really nice thing...

...about living here is being able to take advantage of amazing opportunities, like sleeping in an abandoned ryokan-turned art museum tucked into the mountains. We had another big cleaning day up here, and this time, since it wasn't snowing, we had a cookout and "camp out" in various rooms at this place. The rooms that had floors, anyway. (it being "abandoned" some of the areas are a little "sketchy")

Just another day in (a) Hell

Ha! I couldn't resist. I went to Beppu with some friends of mine and we went to several of the 地獄　じごく ("jigoku") or "hells" for which the city is famous. Click on the title of this post for a link to a page about the other hells in Beppu.


In this photo Jared and I are at "Chinoike Jigoku" aptly named for its blood-red color. Check back soon to see us buried alive, and you also don't want to miss the MONKEYS...
mata! ;)

HTB by Night

I ended up going to the 5 o'clock Circo Luci show, so I was in Huis Ten Bosch after sunset. To be honest, I expected more from the show, but I might very well be unfairly comparing it to the Cirque du Soleil! There was one amazing performer (I don't think I've ever seen such an enormous and man who was so "cut" before!) who did some really cool things with and in both a giant ring and later an open metal cube. At one point, he had the cube (which was as tall as he was) tipped up on one of its corners and was spinning it on his forehead! It didn't even look real. The costumes of the "extras" were quite bizarre, but were entertaining.
Afterwards I wandered around a little more, grabbed a hot chai tea latte from the man selling them in the VW bus (again - random, but cute!), and enjoyed the town as it began to wink on at twilight.

Unzen

Last Sunday I made the pilgrimage to Unzen. Well, actually, I didn't get to the top of the mountain, because, once again, I was flying blind here. I hopped on a bus at Isahaya, and thought I bought a ticket for Mt. Unzen (on the map, it's the big mountain/national park on the peninsula that juts off down and to the right of where I am in Isahaya). The bus ride out was amazing - the road wound its way along some cliffs beside the Tachibana Bay, and on my return trip, the sun was setting over the water. I've lived at sea level all my life, but I can't believe how different an ocean looks from so high up! I felt like I was on Cape Breton, N.S. again.
Since I wasn't sure where I was going, I got off the bus when the ticket price matched the electronic sign in the front of the bus. Fortunately, I had arrived in the little "resort" town of Unzen, where you go if you want to enjoy some magnificent natural onsens. Unfortunately, it might help to be 'hard of smelling', since the whole place smells like sulfur. Nonetheless, I walked around the boardwalks to see the hot springs, then I hiked a bit in the national park there, which was the first national park in Japan. Afterwards I just HAD to try one of the hard-boiled eggs that the street vendors were selling (when travelling, you must ALWAYS try out the street vendor fare!). (Eggs?!) I'm getting used to "random" "natural" things...I'm finding the Japanese typically revere/celebrate/sell/make stuffed toys of the natural goods of the area. Here, it's eggs - I believe they just stick 'em in the hot springs and 'voila'! Yasui (cheap), too! Only 60 yen - and that even includes a tiny origami salt packet. Mmmm...oishii, yo!