Summer Camp Madness

This is what I get paid for.

Because this...

...is what everyone wants in a fine dining establishment.

In Kumamoto city, Kyushu, Japan.

A Short Trip to the Coast

On one of my days off, I went to the southern coast of Kyushu (and yes, I'm still talking about my first month in Japan.  In fact, since the time since has been uneventful and fairly boring, I'm pretty sure it will only take me a week to cover it).  Anyway, I went to an onsen that was famous for burying people in hot sand on the beach.  (In the picture above, under the rooftop is where they bury people). You put on a yukata and a bunch of old ladies armed with shovels bury you in sand that is naturally heated, you know, from hell or something.  The sand was almost unbearably hot.  I got burns on my shoulder and elbow.  The time limit was 15 minutes, but I don't think I managed to make it 10.  I didn't get a picture taken of myself buried alive, so just imagine that for the day I turned into an old Japanese guy.

And I sort of wish I had, since when I got up, my yukata was soaking wet with sweat, and sand was sticking to me all over.  Looking around, though, I saw Japanese people getting up and brushing sand off their dry robes as if they'd just been laying on an ordinary beach.  Unfair!

After that ordeal (which was an experience, but probably not something that I will actively seek out in the future), I decided to go hiking.  Actually, what happened was I was going to go to a park to eat lunch, but discovered that there was an admission fee to the park, so then I went to take a look at a mountain, the Mount Fuji of Kyushu.  When I saw it, I decided that despite not actually being dressed for it, carrying two bags, and not really having enough time until nightfall, I would hike to the top.

So, I left one bag in the closet of an abandoned restroom and climbed as fast as I could.  All the old people told me "good luck!" or "you'll never make it in time!" or "good afternoon!" as they passed me on their way down.  Anyway, I think it was 3:30 when I started, it was supposed to take 2.5 hours, but I ran half the way, so I got up to the top at about 5:00, glanced at the view, had someone take a picture of me, then ran back down.  Safety is my middle name!  It's, you know, my other middle name.  The secret one that no one ever talks about around me for some reason...

Here is a picture of me eating a bowl of raw fish...

because I'm too lazy to write anything new today.

Sakurajima part 2

The second time Angelica and I went to Sakurajima, we went to work (Note: I should be putting the word "work" in quotation marks as a sign of sarcasm or disdain since the amount of actual labor we put in probably amounted to roughly five minutes of normal work for other people, but I am trying to distance myself from the overuse of quotation marks as a a cheap and ineffectual shortcut.  After all, you really enjoyed reading this long-winded side note, right?  And would this have been possible had I used quotation marks?  Of course not!).  The owner of the hotel wanted to test drive a few WWOOFers (and here I remind you that WWOOF stands for Willing Workers on ORGANIC FARMS), so our host sent us over for two days.

Now, they had no idea what to do with us.  The gave us two 18-year-old chaperones who were scared to death of us, and mainly we just stood in a corner while people ran around trying to figure out a simple task that we couldn't screw up.

We ended up setting the tables for dinner and breakfast and then folding some towels.  And that was it.  Then we ran around for awhile taking pictures.

The coolest part of this trip was that we got to stay in the traditional tatami mat hotel rooms.  They are really big rooms with futons in the closet.  On the thing that looks like a balcony but was actually just a small, partitioned off place, there was a small table, a sink (the bathroom and toilet room were on the opposite side of the room near the door) and a refrigerator.  And then there was a balcony beyond that. 

They even provided yukatas for our use.  Yukatas look like mini-kimonos/bathrobes, and people wear them around the hotel, to the restaurants or going to/from the onsen. Please ignore the funny look on my face; that's what happens after 20 failed attempts at taking a picture of myself.

Sakurajima

During my time WWOOFing, I went to a small volcanic island off the coast called Sakurajima.  I went there twice actually.  Let's look at a map, shall we?

I was working at the farm in Kagoshima, there in red at the bottom of the island.  Right next to the city, in the inlet, there is a small bubble or something, that looks to be attached to the other side, but isn't, actually.  That's Sakurajima. 

Sakurajima is basically just a big old volcano with people living around it.  It erupts something like 400 times a year, spreading ash in whatever direction the wind happens to be blowing (occasionally toward Kagoshima so that while working in the fields I was also occasionally inhaling ash and crying from dust stinging my eyes.  I was a beautiful, beautiful farmer) and in fact was erupting the entire time I was there. 

This is a picture taken from Kagoshima during a time of non-eruption. 

Anyhoo, the first time I went there was because the boss-man at the farm said his friend owned a hotel there, and we (we meaning myself and Angelica, the Colombian girl that was also staying at the farm) could go use the outdoor onsen for free. Let's ooh and aah for a moment about how nice it was:

Can you see me?  I'm there in the background watching the volcano erupt.  The ocean is behind me and there is a shrine to the right.

And here's Angelica, eating (surprise, surprise) a donut...

Here is the indoor onsen, where I had a nap, naked, on the warm flagstones.  Nobody was there, okay?  There's a sign that has the mineral content and whatnot there to the left.  It said that back in the samurai time, people with stomach/intestinal problems would stay on the island for months drinking the water.  I drank the water.  A lot of it.  I believe the only effect I perceived was a slight bloating.

After hours and hours at the onsen, we had to take the ferry back to Kagoshima.  A man working at the hotel offered us a ride and took us the long way around the so we could see the volcano from a better view,

You can see the plumes of ash coming out of the side.  We went to the side where the eruption actually was, but by then it was way too ashy to get out of the car.  (Hmmm, did you know, the islanders individually wrap each fruit on the trees in sackcloth to keep the ash off?  It's true.  They do.  And this has been another interesting fact with Amber).

So, then we went to see this half-buried temple gate,

and then we took the ferry back to Kagoshima.

Seeing as how this post became very long, I will write about my second trip to Sakurajima when I was working at the hotel later.  Hooray for folding towels!

Beppu

It is rare that you find those things in life, those things that you love, that you save money for, that you seek out no matter where you go.  For me, getting naked with a bunch of strangers in hot water is one of those things.  I love it.  I cherish it.  I writhe around in an almost religious fervor thinking about it.  Hm, perhaps writhe isn’t the correct word for talking about bathing in public.  Or maybe it is.

Nevertheless, it was inevitable that in Japan, a land known for its outdoor hot springs, I might have a problem.  It was also inevitable that the one place I really wanted to go to in Kyushu was not the historically significant Nagasaki, or the big castle/horse eating mecca of Kagoshima, but the tiny onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu. 

Believe me, after a month of farming, you’d be wanting a bath too.  Or four or five.  You know, just to make sure.

So I went there, and had several baths, none of which were photographed because that’s rude and wrong and I would never do that (although, I think my fellow WWOOFer Angelica may have taken a picture of me at an onsen so if any pictures of me taking a nap naked at an onsen pop up, you know why). But what was really neat, and I failed to capture it well on camera,  was looking out over the town in the morning. There are so many onsens and natural hot springs, the entire town seems to be steaming.