day five, Beppu
Today starts with a three-hour bus ride into the mountains from Fukuoka to Beppu, a famous hot spring resort. The scenery gets more and more dramatic with towering volcanic peaks on all sides, and we spot a roadside statue of a red oni waving his club in a menacing fashion--he's not a local god but an advertisement. =) As the open volcanic pools and mud pits are locally called jigoku, literally 'hells', just about every one uses cartoony oni (ogres) as advertising and mascots, and you can buy every sort imaginable in the gift shops, from cute little keychains to huge, super cool traditional masks. evb falls in love with a ferociously scowling red one with gilded horns and horsehair mane, but spots his price tag and reluctantly passes him by, settling for a pair of neat little masks with beaded hanging cords. (She also finds an oni-Hello Kitty keychain, which cements our conviction that the solemn little feline is the true thousand-formed and all-seeing Goddess of Japan.)
At our stop for lunch we have tonkatsu -breaded pork cutlet--with curried rice, and it’s so yummy that we write down the characters for it on the menu so we’ll spot it next time we’re looking for a restaurant. Our evenings at McDonalds may be over at last. =)
There are nine 'hells of Beppu' but we have time to see only four: Umi Jigoku or Ocean Hell, a steaming blue pool with a beautiful display of many-colored water lilies; Oni-ishi Bozu Jigoku or Monk Hell, grey bubbling mud pits whose round bubbles reminded someone of shaven monk's heads; Tatsumake Jigoku or Waterspout Hell, a cool periodic geyser which goes off every 25 minutes round the clock; and our favorite, Chinoike Jigoku or Blood Pool Hell [I kept hearing Nathan Explosion growling “Bluuuuuud…oceaaann….” in my head =), a pond of boiling red water ringed with palm trees and tropical foliage. (Because of the constantly steam-heated temperatures, tropical plants thrive at the hells -- coconut palms, yucca, orchids and more. It makes for a wonderful prehistoric-jungle atmosphere.) There’s a seedy roadside-attraction vibe to the hells that’s a lot like what you’d see here: the appointments are a little run-down and rusty, and the oni and tanuki statues standing here and there in the foliage are pretty obviously planted for tourist photo ops.
One thing isn’t, though. At three of the four hells we visit there are Jizo Bodhisattva shrines, each one dressed in a baby’s pink or red bib, every one carefully tended with fresh flowers in the vases and bowls of coin offerings. The one at Blood Pool even has lit candles and jars of incense sticks on offer, and Ocean Hell has torii gates alongside its shrine. It gives a decidedly other edge to the surroundings: these may be tricked-up a little for visitors, but they’re still sacred places of divine power. [--I have to wonder about this: I do hope Jizo is here in his aspect as protector of travelers, rather than because the volcanic pools claim an immoderate number of children.]
Anyway, having picked out our souvenirs, we’re off to the ryokan, our traditional Japanese inn. I’d honestly not been even sure if we’d have electricity, but it turns out the place is only about 75% traditional: open-plan room with sliding paper screens, tatami mats and floor seating, but also TV, phone, fridge and Wi-Fi. =) We have a stunning view of Beppu Bay and Takasaki-yama-and also of the flock of local feral cats which we see being fed by a lady on a bicycle [who apparently does so regularly, as the nekos give her a big welcome. Cat-loving EVB gets many pix of the kitties. =)=)
There are zori, yukata and, um, jackets (I’m not good enough at this to know if they’re haori or hippari) in the closet and we’ve been told it’s OK to wear them to dinner. So I do. A many-course traditional meal is the menu for tonight, and we contemplate this with sinking unease, as I don’t do raw fish and EVB eats no marine food at all. But we’ve no wish to be rude, so we settle at our table and forge on gamely.
It’s rough going, but we do our best. I get through by taking the likeliest-looking fishy slices and cooking them in our shabu-shabu bin, though I imagine we’re supposed to have eaten them raw; and there’s chicken as well, and rice and miso, tea, fruit, and more flavors of tofu than I’ve ever seen. (And a beef course, which EVB views with gratitude-I give her mine too.) Course after course arrives, all of it beautifully presented -it would probably have cost a fortune if we’d not gotten it as a gift. I deeply hope we don’t give any offense by not eating everything, but we do our best to show our appreciation at least, and of course everyone is unfailingly courteous.
When we get back to the room the maids have laid out our futons for us. The moon’s risen over the bay, a long shining path on the water. It’d be like sleeping in a Kurosawa film if it weren’t for the flashing animated signs of the pachinko and slot parlors across the parking lot (we are in a resort town after all). But…no matter. I’ll be in the Kurosawa film all the same. =)