Beppu

Sorry the other posts didn`t make it until today. I had been posting each night, but the site was in Japanese and I wasn`t publishing I was saving the posts as drafts. Well, at least you all have a lot to read.

Today I had a long, yet lovely train ride to Beppu. Upon arrival I checked into my this fantastic ryokan. It is the nicest place I`ve stayed in. I`m glad the cheap place was booked up!

I took a very long walk to a place that is closed the last Wednesday of every month then walked all the way back to my area of town. I then had myself buried in sand.

Buried in sand? Yes, buried in sand. It was fantastic! After getting over the initial moment of being uncomfortable while naked in front of people in the changing and bathing room, I put on my yakuza (robe) and moved into the sand room. There were two older women there who, using gestures, instructed me to lay down in a shallow trench of black sand. The room was rather large, had high wooden ceilings and large windows. I would say they could bury about 50 people in that room. The woman started by covering me from foot to shoulders with hot heavy sand. As soon as the woman put sand on each limb, I could feel blood pumping to that area of my body. The only moment that was uncomfortable was when she put a huge pile of sand on my stomach. She tucked some sand under my shoulders and head and then left me to sweat. My limbs were pulsing and I was sweating while wondering how long I could take the heat. Just when I felt I couldn`t take it any longer, I would become comfortable again, then uncomfortable, then comfortable. The second time the woman came to check on me I decided it was time to get up. Getting out of the sand was a very ungraceful maneuver. I think I spent about 10 minutes in the sand.

A man had come in while I was being buried. He was wearing his glasses. It was a pretty comical sight to see his head sticking out of the sand and it made me miss Ajay simply because I imagined he would have to wear his glasses as well.

For the final part of the ritual I took a shower and then bathed in a very hot bath. All the while the women in the sand room were talking and talking. I was fortunate to have the bath and shower room to myself. It was a quite afternoon at the bath.

After hiking around Aso San, a volcano, tomorrow I`m hoping to go to the mud and outdoor baths in another part of town.