This weekend, I went to Japan with a couple of my friends. We left Busan on Saturday morning and returned on Sunday night. Although the stay was short, we packed in a lot.
We left Busan at 9:15 am and landed in Fukuoka at 10:05. (It seems so strange that I can get to another country in less than an hour.) After a bus, a subway, and a 2 hour high-speed train ride, we made it to our destination...Beppu - the hot spring capital of Japan! First stop...sand baths!! For this experience, we visited the oldest onsen (bathhouse) in the area - Takegawara Onsen. In a nutshell, take off your clothes, put on a robe, let the ladies bury you in the sand, cook for about 15 minutes, wash off the sand, then take a bath. It was great!
Next, we checked into the hostel. This was a nice place that was centrally located in Beppu.
The rest of the evening included some shopping, dinner, and playing pachiko. I'm not exactly sure what we had for dinner as we were at some-type of traditional Japanese restaurant. I didn't care for the phlegm-looking appetizer and one of the kabobs, but the rest of it was pretty good. After dinner, and a couple drinks, we went to the casino to play pachinko. Basically, you try to get the balls to hit some type of a target and you can earn more balls. When you're finished, turn in the balls for cash. Though given an instruction sheet in "English", I still have no idea what I was doing. I lost my marbles quickly (LOL), but Ellen made about $40!! Woohoo!!
Day number 2 took us to "The Hells", sushi for lunch, and one last trip to the onsen. The Hells are the 9 hot springs that Beppu is famous for. We only had time to visit 6 of them.
We hopped back on the train to Fukuoka, then back to Korea. Here are a few other pictures from the trip.
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