Day 5 -- Beppu

We got to Beppu at 9 am in rainy weather. After breakfast we went to the city and took a bus to 8 Hells. Beppu’s hells or jigokumeguri are geothermal sites with extremely hot water, volcanic steam emissions. The 8 hottest ones are a big tourist attraction and they are really spectacular. The water in them is boiling hot and they are even used for cooking. The large steam plumes are visible from quite a distance away. We visited one called Umijigoku, which was quite impressive. We soaked our feet in hot geothermal water in a special pool. There are hundreds of geothermal springs in Beppu, most not as hot and many thermal bath houses. After the bus trip back down the hill we walked through the town. We saw the oldest public bath house Takegawara built in 1879. In Japanese bath houses people bathe in communal pools naked, but there are separate areas for men and women. We continued our walk through a large department store where Bo bought more one-toe socks and had nice coffee and pastry, then to the 17th floor of the Beppu tower with a great view of the entire area. On the walk back to the ship we met a couple of crew members from Odessa in Ukraine and had a nice chat with them