You know when the next episode of a TV show or a movie sequel picks up exactly where the previous one left off? That’s the relationship of this blog post to my previous one. After my afternoon soba outing, my school had a nomikai in Matsuyama to commemorate the end of the semester. This is notable because if my school had any other nomikais in my year here, I was not invited to them. While it was nice to have an opportunity to socialize with my colleagues in a more informal setting, it underscored how unfriendly and antisocial the workplace was during the year. I don’t wish to dwell on it.
Anyway, the next morning I rose bright and early to meet our good friend Will on the train. We were bound for the port town of Yawatahama. The limited express train stopped at the scenes of my adventures throughout the year, like Uchiko and Ozu, and whizzed by smaller towns that I didn’t get the chance to visit, like Uwajima.1
The scenery in Yawatahama reminded me of this meme
We didn’t come to Yawatahama to hang out in Yawatahama. Although we did grab a little fresh sushi from the fish market next to the ferry port.
Squid ink
We came to get the ferry to Beppu – a city across the Seto Inland Sea on the island of Kyushu. Known for their natural hot springs, I’ve been intrigued and wanted to visit for a while. And now my time in Japan is running out.
After a very hot and sweaty (a theme since the calendar has flipped to July) walk to the ferry, we board. This is the third long-distance ferry I’ve taken in Japan – with the other two being to/from Hiroshima and from Osaka to Ehime – and this felt like the fanciest. There’s a full snack counter and even a Cup Noodle vending machine. We post up at a table near a window, but soon migrate onto the roof/deck area.
I chase my sushi with an ice cream bar and watch the Sadamisaki Peninsula (which I refer to as “the finger of Ehime”) as well as the innumerable islands of the Seto whiz by. I also retained a silly sunburn on my pasty thighs.
We pulled into Beppu shortly after one o’clock. “Welcome to Beppu” the sign says. It has a broken-down sort of charm that reminds me of my limited time in Okinawa.
Plumes of steam puff in the distance. Beppu has been a destination across Japan for hot springs since ancient times. To clarify: there are onsens everywhere, but I think most onsens (hot springs) are actually sentos (public baths). Japan is a mountainous nation, but I don’t think most of the self-proclaimed hot springs actually use natural hot spring volcanic water. Beppu is a city built on seismic faults and thermal vents. Egg-scented steam billows from random pipes and street corners, contributing to the already-excessive heat and humidity.
Beppu is also incredibly international – by Japanese standards. The city is home to Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU). While Ritsumeikan is in fact a university in Kyoto, APU is the conceptual child of Oita Prefecture and the Ritsumeikan Trust, and boasts a 50:50 ratio of domestic to international students and staff. So don’t assume that the foreigners you see around town are other tourists – they might be students!
After a food court lunch of とり天 (toriten) – tempura style fried chicken, an Oita specialty – we hop the bus to Mt. Tsurumi. One of the many mountains that ring the Beppu-Oita City area.
We considered hiking up or down the mountain, but given the heat we skip the hike and opt for the cable car instead.
As we ascended to the tune of the voiceover – everything in Japan from the bus, to the coffee machine, to the ATM has to talk to you in an overly cheerly chirp – the city below disappeared beneath a blanket of fog.
Stepping off the cable car onto the mountaintop was like stepping onto the moon.
These rusty radio towers rising out of the abyss was a very spooky, Lynchian (another dollar in the Lynchian jar) sort of vibe.
We find evidence of rabbit activity (ie, poop) as well as this cluster of butterflies.
Another animal is waiting for us back down at the base of the mountain.
We stop by a local onsen – just a single pool with two stools to wash yourself to destinkify before dinner.
Our friend Tom’s friend Tom – a British Beppu ALT – steered us toward a local izakaya. Though I neglected to take any pictures, the food was inventive and delicious, including benishoga (that neon-red pickled ginger than you’ll find at sushi) kimchi and a pork-kimchi stir-fry. Hot weather makes me want cool, crunchy, pickly bits.
From there, we were waiting for it to get late enough to head over to Creole Cafe, one of Beppu Tom’s favorite hangouts where there was a DJ playing tonight. We walk down to the coast to sip a beverage and gaze at the industrial coast of Oita City. Surprisingly, we spot some flecks of bioluminescence when two guys fishing next to us disturb the water’s surface.
We arrive at Creole Cafe – where they do not serve gumbo, jambalaya, or anything of the sort – around 10:20. It’s mostly empty, with about five guys milling around to free jazz. I spill Will’s vodka Redbull, but thankfully nobody notices, and I replace it with a beer. The Japanese staff and patrons speak good English, and the place begins to fill up once we pass 11 o’clock. The music becomes more hip hop and housey, but Will is practically asleep on his feet so we call it around midnight and walk back to our hostel.
The next morning, it’s hot and humid yet again. We’re jonesing for a swim in some cold, fresh water. We find a waterfall on Google, and hop on rented electric bikes.
Even with our electric boost, we’re dripping in sweat by the time we arrive.
Deer antler on the trail
We hike for about fifteen minutes only to discover that somebody has turned off Onbara Falls. There’s a river trickling by, but no falls to speak of. I’m so desperate to cool off that I, in my bare feet, clamber down rocks and clear away spiderwebs to submerge myself. It’s gloriously refreshing, and there’s no one around.
Some live creature dances over my foot in the small swimming hole – perhaps a frog, which Will spots. Eventually we get hungry, so we start to head out, but putting a clean and dry foot into my socks and sneakers requires some maneuvering.
On the way to our next destination – an onsen selected by Will – we stop for lunch. I love these fast-food style joints. You have a jug of water and every utensil and condiment you need on your table. The menu is big, the food has a high floor and a medium ceiling, and it’s affordable. Lately, all I want to eat is cold noodles, so I opt for udon and Will goes for soba.
Will orders these leaf-wrapped onigiri – a first for me, and they are delicious. I’m also pleasantly surprised by the quality of the tempura. Will claims that cuttlefish is always better than squid, so that piece of fried cephalopod must be cuttlefish because it’s so tender.
After grabbing a conbini ice cream – we go for cola float Coolish, designed so you can eat it with no hands while you ride your bike – we arrive at Hyotan Onsen.
I didn’t even know an onsen could have a Michelin star, let alone three. After scrubbing the river grime from between our toes, we hopped from bath to bath. There were a variety of indoor ones, including a cypress tub and one shaped like a gourd. Individual water streams fell from a height of several feet in one pool, and you could stand, sit, or lay down underneath and position your body so the heavy rivulet fell directly on your shoulder, neck, or any other sore or stiff part of the body.
In the large outdoor pool – it doesn’t feel as hot outside when you’re wet and nude – we saw a Japanese dude with a giant tiger tattoo on his torso. It wasn’t quite a yakuza-style inking, but it raised our eyebrows. Most onsen have a punitive ban on tattoos, derived from concerns about yakuza presence. But Hyotan does permit tattoos. Go figure. Anyways, we discuss how onsen culture is such a reprieve from the standard Japanese modestly/prudishness. Japanese people, especially women, will often wear full long sleeves during summer, and even a mask/hat contraption to protect them from the sun – which I refer to jokingly as a burka. While in the West, we associate being tan with leisure, in Japan pale skin is the beauty standard, and being tan is for farmers. Meanwhile, in the onsen, an old dude will put his balls right up in your grill and nobody bats an eye. But I digress.
There’s also a very eggy sauna – which Will loves, but I’m not a big fan of. My favorite is the cold plunge, which is usually for right after the steam room, but given the weather I just camp in the one small tub for a long spell. Probably not very polite but I don’t care. After hitting every bath I’ve had enough, so I drip-dry (my towel is thoroughly soiled from the earlier river bathing), and retreat to one of the relaxation rooms.
After a half-hour goes by, I start to get slightly concerned that Will has drowned in the onsen and we won’t be able to return our rented bikes on time. Just as I get up to go find him, I spot him through the window sipping a paper cup of onsen water. Apparently he fell asleep on one of the wooden benches in the onsen. We rush to our bikes after Will proclaims it to be his favorite onsen yet – high praise indeed.
As we peddle furiously, we get splattered by some very localized, very large raindrops. We make it back to the rental place with about five minutes to spare. From there, it’s time for dinner. Given the internationalness of Beppu, we opt for Thai food – something I have scarcely had in all my time in Japan. The restaurant we find is decorated with souvenirs from Thailand (many for sale), as well as art of celebrities from movie stars to athletes. Very strange and very kitschy – which can be a sign of good food to come.
After crushing a Chang (I can’t remember my ranking of Thailand’s three macropisslagers (that’s an official term by the way), Leo and Singha being the other two), we ordered papaya salad and larb to share. I slurped on khao soi – a Northern Thai chicken curry soup – for my entree while Will went for mee gati. It was genuinely delicious – I’ve definitely had worse Thai food in America – although I could have had it spicier and sourer.
I extinguished my spicy mouth with some Baskin Robbins – known simply as “31” here, and recently opened in Matsuyama’s Okaido to much fanfare, which is funny to me – as we strolled down to the beach, stopping to poke our heads in a musty bookshop. We were pretty exhausted from our day of biking, so we turned in early and I enjoyed watching a really mundane TV show. The premise of the show was that two guys had 1000 yen ($6.13) to last three days – the older man was wiser and could cook, while the younger one could not. The older man was making pasta and stuff, while his younger counterpart was doing nonsense like frying natto. A tale as old as time.
Our third and final day in Beppu – Marine Day, a national holiday. We decided to celebrate with some sushi, at a place recommended by a Japanese friend in Matsuyama. But when we arrived to put our name in shortly after 11, we were informed that it would be a four hour wait. Apparently, this restaurant is so popular that people arrive at 7:30 in the morning to put their name in. We bailed on that and instead visited the nearby fragrance museum. It contained, among many things to smell, a replica of an 18th century French aristocratic bedroom. Go figure. I’m in the market for a tasteful, woody scent (Mete’s influence), but everything in the gift shop is very floral/soapy/female oriented so I leave empty-handed.
For lunch, we almost went back to the Thai restaurant – it was that good. Instead, we went for Vietnamese, which was rather disappointing. The food was bland, and they were out of cilantro. When I learned this, I had a flash of excitement for my return to the States, where a Vietnamese restaurant would not be caught dead running out of cilantro.
That was basically it. We caught the ferry back, and then the train. I rose early the next morning to, along with the other Iyo ALTs, run a dodgeball camp for the kids in a very hot and stuffy gym. My apartment is a mess of various piles of clothes, bubble wrap, and vacuum seal bags.
Stay tuned for my adventures in Kochi with Walid and Jack this upcoming weekend…
- When I first arrived in Japan, the fact that Portland’s flagship Japanese grocery store shares its name with a city in Ehime Prefecture was an intriguing nugget. A quick look at Uwajimaya’s Wikipedia reveals that the founder of Uwajimaya, Fujimatsu Moriguchi, hailed from Yawatahama and named his store after the town where he first went into business. Much like Portland, Ehime is not a particularly populous area, but punches above its weight culturally. ↩︎
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