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We got up early and had the Western-style breakfast at our Beppu hotel, in the hope that it would be more awesome than the Japanese breakfrast form yesterdaya. It started off with a big ole salad and a bacon and egg hotpot that we got to cook ourselves over a real flame! Not hot enough to really fry the bacon though – how un-western that would be! We hate crisp bacon in Australia.
Next we were given 5 enormous slices of bread and instructed on how to use a toaster. Down, up, see? We also got to eat a bowl of corn soup! Of course we had the usual western slice of grape fruit and pieces of cut up apple and naturally a glace cherry.
They gave us coffee though. I don’t know what was so western about that.
The breakfast was totally weird and huge but every individual thing was yummy.
I was tired so I went up to bed again, and Chucky went to the bath house around the corner. It is written about in the Lonely planet.
Chucky: This bath was so close that I couldn't leave without trying it out. Lonely Planet says "it is very simple... and very hot" which was an apt description. There were no showers or taps, just stools and washbuckets and a big hot bath. You have to scoop up some water from the bath into a bucket and wash yourself. It still seems weird that Japanese people treat this experience as everyday washing, people shave and clean their teeth at the bath. The bath itself was SUPER HOT. Like as hot as the footbath. Imagine pins and needles of hotness on your whole body! My only strategy was to sit really still because if I moved at all it felt all hot again. After I got out, an old man got out as well and I detected a change in the air. I think the old guy had set the bath too hot because another man waited until he had left and then opened up a cold water tap before trying to get in. Bizarre. The building that this bath was in was great. It's apparently a Meiji era building and has stereotypical Japanese style architecture.
Chrissy: We packed up and went to the station to catch the train to Fukuoka. Luckily we didn’t have to change trains. Chucky had an unhappy tummy again which was worrying.
We arrived at Hakata (same as Fukuoka) at around 1pm and looked around the bustling station for food. We found a café where we had a quiche and a BLT sandwich. Japanese-style western food is quite nice.
We took the subway one stop which saved us ten minutes of walking, and our hotel was right around the corner. It was jolly cold. Our room is fairly large with a heater table and a fridge! I love the heater table and snuggled under the quilt. This place appears very old and is sort of rickety. The hotel has a garden in a courtyard in the centre of the building, and we have a nice view of that. Our room has no toilet or shower so we’re sharing with this floor, which is fine. I’ve only seen one other person here. As I was resting under the table, I thought I saw snow out the window. It had run away by the time I ran and looked.
We went out to “Canal City” which is a huge shopping complex with a famous fountain. Luckily, just as we approached it, the fountain started performing to the tune of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast. It was amazing. The shopping complex is 5 storys high, and the fountain shot up slightly higher than that. We looked around for a while and bought some gifts for Emi and her family, as we’re going to their house tomorrow. We had some coffees and cake at a Starbucks which was novel. I had a black cherry mocha, which is a drink that we sampled at a test-run weeks ago in Yokohama. It was then that I realised that I no longer had my scarf with me. We retraced our steps for ages and I couldn’t find it. I was so upset with myself… but I didn’t really like that scarf anyway. After a while the shops got boring because they were all the same. We did see a bag shop called “Labia” though. We had a giggle. There is something called Ramen Stadium at Canal City, which Charles had read about in the Lonely Planet. It said you could sample heaps of different types of Ramen. Turns out they were just a floor of Ramen restaurants and some signs we couldn’t read. So in order to “sample” them you have to buy a bunch of different dishes for 850 yen each.
I have a nasty sore throat today and I was feeling really bad around that time. We stopped for dinner at a cheap-ish restaurant that sold Ramen amongst other things. It was not in Ramen Stadium.
Now we’re back at the hotel where there is only internet at the front desk, so I don’t know how we’ll put this up, or even if we will at all today.
