Beppu and Back

Another day, another day-trip. We crawled out of bed late today and ran down to the station in time to catch a 2 PM train out to Beppu, an onsen town on Kyushu two hours from Fukuoka. Our first stop was a place called Takegawara Onsen, a huge wooden building of Japanese-style architecture set oddly on a small street otherwise populated by the cheesy neon of gentlemen's clubs. This particular onsen is not your normal, run-of-the-mill hot bath. This was my first "sunaburo", or sand bath. You put on a yukata (kind of a bathrobe) and lie down on this coffee colored sand that is heated presumably by hot springs bubbling up underneath it. This old woman then started shoveling heavy mounds of sand on me, an experience akin to crossing a day at the beach with your own funeral. The sound of the shovel digging into the soil was particularly ominous. Once I was buried up to my neck, she looked down over my face and said I could un-bury myself in 10-15 minutes. At first it was just pleasant warmness all over, and it was sort of soothing to have the sand pressing so tightly up against my body. Then I became really conscious of my own circulatory system because I could feel each heartbeat reverberate simultaneously through my chest, neck, arms, and legs. Which wasn't so bad, just sort of strange. But then it started getting uncomfortably hot. And I'm a little claustrophobic. I started to imagine I was a pig roasting underneath the sands of some polynesian beach. Then the sweating started - and it was trickling right into my ears, making them incredibly itchy. I tried moving my head around, but it didn't help. I considered calling out for help, but then I realized I was just buried underneath three inches of sand at a place that was supposed to be pleasurable, so I sucked it up. After what seemed like an eternity of concentrating on not itching and twitching my toes a lot uncomfortably, the old guy (who may or may not be the old woman's husband) finally came over and said we could get up.

Despite being a place where people are covered with sand, the sand onsen was the only one I've been to where there is no soap or shampoo in the showers, so we decided to head on to another onsen called Tanayu at a huge spa hotel on the hills around Beppu called Suginoi Palace to wash the sand out of our hair and, uh, body crevices. That onsen was fabulous. There were enough baths to keep you entertained for an hour, and a view of the city and bay that was pretty spectular. I personally liked the bath with the little wooden pillow that you could lie supine in and just take in the view from. After dinner, we had a nice sukiyaki dinner and caught the last train (a really fancy train called Sonic that is kind of like a spaceship in design and decor) back to Fukuoka.

Tomorrow, it's back home to Sendai after over two weeks away. I can relax there for a couple weeks before heading to Tokyo at the beginning of March for the Fulbright Mid-year Conference since I cancelled my trip to China with Dave and Katie. I already have a bunch of stuff planned for the next week, so I'm anxious to get home.

These last couple weeks have been absolutely incredible in terms of experience and absolutely exhausting in every other sense. I have to thank John Kim and Jen Schwartz, who were both gracious and wondereful hosts while I was traveling. I went from one end of Japan proper to the other, and saw and did so much. Skiing, festivals, onsens, temples, food, friends, shopping. I rode boats, buses, planes, cars, trains, subways, taxis. It's been one expensive tour, but I think well worth it. I'm starting to get close to completing my list of "must-see" places in Japan. If I'm lucky, I'll be done with the list before June 17.