Beppu and Oita!

Ah, Beppu. A city between the hills and the ocean. Where the sulphuric mists of hell billow up to bathe the travel-weary body in hot springs carved out of the living earth. Where the over-worked can rest their over-wrought nerves in a bed of mud or earth-warmed sand. Where every breath in a sauna draws in a cleansing, penetrating heat and expels all the baggage we each of us carry on our life's journey.

And such a tourist trap, your wallet shivers when the ferry hits the tire-tread covered dock.

Not that I didn't love it. Because I did. All 18 hours I spent there (7 of those, asleep). Beppu is pretty far away from Tano, on a completely different island, and awkwardly accessible only by train or ferry, one of which is fast and freaking expensive, the other of which is freaking slow and quite reasonable. You guess which is which.

I'm not complaining, though. My travel crew picked our wine-soaked selves out of bed on Saturday morning, dined on french toast and good coffee (thank you Melania!) and headed off to Yawatahama by train. After pissing off an old lady in the unreserved section, we climbed on board our ferry over the Japan Sea (or whatever separates Shikoku from Kyushu) and Charon whisked us off to the land of steam and sake at a brisk 7 kilometers an hour. Probably more like 30, but still.