day 160, Beppu

Alarm went off pretty early, packed my stuff up and met with Saul to head out. We caught a bus up into the mountain area in order to find a hidden onsen, a completely natural occurrence where they have channelled  the water through into some rocks which have formed pools out in the open. We walk for 30mins with good directions from the hostel including a picture crib sheet of where to turn and what landmarks to look out for. We arrive and there’s only a couple of old Japanese men there, we greet them, strip off and go in to lovely warm water with a incredible view of countryside, it is immense. After half hour there of just relaxing we ship out in search of a mud bath. On the way we stop for some food at what looks like a very average road side café however the Udon they serve in there was incredible, definitely the best I’ve had. The mud bath was just next door, it has a couple of pools then the mud baths which itself was very strange, it’s about 4 feet deep, warm water for the top 3 feet then a foot of mud, which we paste all over ourselves, sit there, don’t really get it or like it, wash it off and leave though glad I done it. Caught a bus back to the hostel, had the left over vegetable stir fry and then the train back to Fukuoka, at the moment sat in a café waiting to catch my bus in a couple of hours to Nagoya. Saul is going somewhere then will be in Tokyo tomorrow, our hostels are right near each other so have arranged to meet up, I’ve sent Ayumi a email to see if she is still in Tokyo and fancies a night out.