The Saga Continues: Part 2

Ah, relaxation. It's good, isn't it?

Consider this a follow-up post to my last post.

As I mentioned in the aforementioned post, I spent last weekend in Beppu. And you know what? It was amazing. It was everything I needed. What was it exactly that I needed? Well, let me tell you. Onsens, warmer weather, alcohol, beautiful views, and no responsibilities. And let me tell you, I got all of that.

Beppu is, in fact, known for onsen and going into an onsen is something that has always been on my list of things to do in Japan. Because many (most?) onsen do not allow people with tattoos in, though, this has proven to be a bit difficult. Thankfully, as I just said, Beppu is known for onsen. That means that much of its income relies on tourists coming to use their onsen. If they rejected people with tattoos there, they would probably be rejecting quite a few tourists who may have gone to Beppu only because of the onsen. Then those people would probably be upset and and say bad things about the city and blah blah blah... Anyway, I figured my chances of getting into an onsen were highest in Beppu. And apparently I was right - no one had any problems with me at any point.

I went to three different onsen while in Beppu. The first was one that had been recommended to us by the guy who worked at our hostel. Given that he was a resident of the city and had named the spot as his favorite in Beppu, we figured it would be pretty good. And, in my opinion, it was.

The place was right next to a couple of the Jigoku. ("Hells" - particularly hot and strange hot springs for which the city is famous. Note that you don't actually go into these Hells, they're just cool things to look at.) This meant it was placed in a fairly touristy area but, surprisingly to me, there were not actually that many people in the onsen. Maybe it was the time of day that we went or maybe it was something else, but there were only two or three other people (besides us) in the guys' side and, from what I was told, no one else in the girls' side.

There were three different baths available at this onsen. The first was an indoors bath, with glass screens to look outside. Because it was indoors, both the part of you under the water and the part of you above the water were warm. The second was an outdoor bath on the first floor. There was a greater contrast of warm/cold in this bath because, guess what, it's winter and winter air is cold. The third bath was another outdoor bath on the second floor. It was supposed to have a scenic view, but in reality was just a spot that was slightly colder above water due to a light breeze. The "scene" was, well, meh.

Anyway, something about the place really jived with me. It felt cozy: not like a bathing complex with a bunch of rooms, but like someone's personal onsen mansion. And maybe it's because it was my first one, but all my nerves and tensions were essentially wiped away by the time I finished with the place. In truth, I felt kind of like a limp noodle - a fact that I regularly brought up - due to just how relaxed my muscles had become. It was a feeling I could get used to. In total, the experience cost only ￥600. An awesome deal.

Anyway, after that we took a short break, had a beer, and rested up at the hostel. Then we headed to our second onsen, which was really a rather different place.

First, to get to this place, we had to walk through what was clearly the red light district. Between Honey Bee and Universal Babes, it was quite obvious what normally went down there. There were some playful elbow jabs, jokes, and other efforts made in the name of relieving the tension of being in such an odd place. Then, we rounded a corner and encountered a truly massive wooden building built in an old Japanese style.

I should explain something. The reason we had picked this place was because it was apparently known for doing sand baths. As you might imagine, most onsen do not have a sand bath. Even rarer is the mud bath, but that comes later.

Anyway, we purchased our tickets for sand bath & onsen and proceeded into the change area. We put on our yukata, walked by the bath that was our "onsen" and into the sand room. There, we were instructed to lay down and not move. Meanwhile, the attendants shoveled mound after mound of warm sand on top of us. I've been told that the sand was supposed to be hot, that it's supposed to make us sweat like mad. Unfortunately, the sand was not really hot and I certainly was not sweating. It just felt like someone had put a really heavy blanket around me.

I gazed at the ceiling, wiggled my toes, thought about how nice a beer would be after all this. To me left, I watched one of my fellows get buried as well by a rather serious looking attendant. Then the guy to my right, another one of my fellow onsen-goers, mentioned that he could feel his pulse in his legs and could I feel mine, too? Well damn if he wasn't right. I really could. And it was weird. Ba-dum, ba-dum. I returned my thoughts to the ceiling, trying to distract myself.

Then, before I knew it, ten minutes was up and I was instructed to go shower myself off. I did so, then climbed into the bath tub (holy crap it was hot). There was a Japanese guy in there who spoke some English, so we had the conversation that I always have when meeting a Japanese person for the first time.

"Where are you from?"

"Canada. These guys are from England, though."

"I see. So, do you like Japan?"

"I love it! Actually, we live here."

"Eeeh? Truly?"

"Yes, we're English teachers in Okayama."

"Ah, is that so... Where in Okayama?"

"A tiny town, you probably don't know it. It's called ."

"Ah, I see. No, I don't know that town."

"Where are you from?"

"Oh, I'm from ."

I've probably had this conversation a hundred times. Anyway, we talked with him a bit. Turned out he had traveled to Canada before, so that was cool. He left about five minutes later and the two other guys and I relaxed in the tub and chatted a bit. Strangely, the attendants kept poking their heads into the room, as if worried that we crazy gaijin were going to fuck everything up. I say strangely, because the attendants were all women and this was clearly the guys' section. Ah well. Nobody goes to an onsen expecting privacy. The whole point is public nudity, after all.

After a little while, we climbed out, dried off and got changed. The rest of the night was spent drinking and doing karaoke. That night alone could be an entire blog post. Suffice to say, since I only have about 10 more minutes to write this and the post is already getting quite long, it was an eventful night.

The next day we trekked out to the mud bath place. The mud bath place, we later learned from a lady who interviewed us as we exited, was quite a rarity. The word she used was "special," but you get the gist.

This place was huge. Like the other two, it was split into a male and female section. Each section had an indoor regular bath, and outdoor "falling" bath (it had a stream of water that fell into the bath from about two meters up - you were supposed to sit under it and let the falling stream massage your back), a steam room, and an outdoor and indoor mud bath. Well, I say both sections had all this, but I don't actually know if the female section also had all that. But I'm pretty sure it did.

Anyway, we wandered about from spot to spot, covering ourselves when possible, and just generally trying to get the full experience of each area. I should mention that the outdoor mud bath was mixed while all the others were separated by gender. For the outdoor bath, though, the girls had a curtained off area where they could enter the water without exposing themselves to the men. The guys, of course, had no such thing. They simply had to enter the mud bath and not care that all the girls were likely to see their package.

I thought the mud was kind of weird. Not my thing, I guess. The baths were really just regular onsen with a grey, muddy floor. The mud diluted the water so that it was all opaque, but the only thick mud was on the floor. In my opinion, it was just some slimey stuff. I rubbed a little over my tattoo, thinking myself intelligent for finding a way to cover it, then remembered that the water would wash it off as soon as I put it under water. So that didn't really make much difference.

After a while we moved to the indoor mud bath, which was pretty much the same. Amusingly, a group of older women wandered into the guy's indoor mud bath and stood about tittering when they realized they had entered the wrong bath area. After then left, we went back to the indoor onsen for a couple minutes, then decided enough was enough and exited.

All in all, I've decided that onsen are awesome. I'm planning another trip next month to explore one on Naoshima Island, which isn't too far away. I'll let you know how that goes afterwards.

Alright, I'm out of time. Hope you have a good one and I'll see you again next week. Ciao, bella.

~Jeffles