Like a komori out of hell...
After 2 weeks of internet silence, I have finally got my act together enough to send you all an email, having finished all the necessities of settling into Japan - alien card, bank account, mobile phone, hot spring visit, rice cakes, sex museum visit, furniture shopping, descent into hell - so I can settle into the task of communicating with distant friends. It's 7pm here and freezing cold (tropical archipelago my arse), snow is forecast for tomorrow and all my chores are done until Sunday, when I have to hobble onto a bus to Fukuoka and the commencement of my Japanese studies. My arrival in Fukuoka corresponds with some kind of annual pub crawl (which in this weather will be like scott of the antarctic), but rather than burden you with tales of expected hangovers, I thought I might let you know about a few of the fun activities to be had in Beppu town.
Christmas Eve Fireworks Fantasia: The perfect combination of Japanese cute, Japanese weird and pointless western ceremony, christmas eve in Japan is like valentine's day in the west, and young couples go dating. in Beppu this has been turned into a fireworks festival, with traditional festival stalls selling overpriced greasy food, bands and then a big fireworks display. The bands were, in order: a group of children in santa outfits doing a dance; a heavy metal band ("visual" style), with a male and female singer singing passionately about various dark topics; a young female soulful singer-songwriter giving everyone a gentle and warm feeling; and a hip-hop band. All proceeded on the same stage within 10 minutes of one another, did a 30-40 minute set, and were introduced by a screamingly happy female MC. This dizzying combination of genres meant that the crowd was stuffed full of couples from every mix of sub-cultures on the peninsula... very strange. But the combination gets wierder, because after the bands finished the "fireworks fantasia" started. This consisted of fireworks set to a medley of really cheesy 80s romance songs, all narrated by a really cheesy narrator. We could tell he was cheesy because when the foreign music sets came on, he introduced them in English in a really cheerfully tacky American accent. Yay. I had been in Japan for 1 day when I was subjected to this several hour-long concatenation of craziness, and right down to the love-heart shaped firework explosions, it was comfortingly Japanese and completely disorienting.
Mochi making: traditionally in Japan at new year one eats o-mochi, rice cakes, and on the 31st December Emma and I went to her friend Sarah's house to make rice cakes. Sarah has lived in Japan since 1994, and is married to a Japanese Policeman, and is essentially immersed in rural life. She stands to inherit a massive orange farm, which is an interesting quandary about which I will say more in separate emails for those of you who are interested...
Onsen (hot spring) visits: I have been now to 2 onsens, one an open air onsen in the garden of hotel, in which I boiled my brain, and one in a rather exciting Kyushu specialty, the "family onsen" (i.e., love onsen), which is a private hot spring which you can book in advance for a one hour period. The onsen I visited had an inside and an outside bath, the outside bath overlooking hillsides and shadowed by a tree for privacy. I went with a family (who were, fortunately, in a different private room with their 3 rowdy children), and they recommended I experience this onsen with the aid of beer. It's a good idea, provided the water isn't so hot that it boils you while you drink - but fortunately this hot spring was perfect.
The sex museum: I went there today, just before I went into hell. This place contains a wax work of snow white having sex with the 7 dwarves (please press the big breast to see the dwarves move) while prince charming looks on in shock from a window; wax life-size replicas of animal genitals (including a whale's girly bits!) with pictures of some of the animals in action (my god giraffes are scary); a little cinema playing really hammy 80s Japanese police porn; wax replicas of jane fonda and some other western actress; and upstairs a long series of exhibits of early 20th century Japanese pornographic prints. All of these prints were under perspex covers which had carefully pixelated dots over the juicy parts of the picture, just like in a Japanese porno. How pointless! But the staff had conveniently knocked the prints so that the dirty bits were in many cases just slightly to the right or left of the key sections... also the front counter, which was staffed by a dour middle-aged lady, was selling a variety of quite inventive sex tools. Woohoo!
My descent into hell: the sex museum is rather appropriatley situated on "Demon Mountain", which hosts the 8 Beppu "hells", hot springs too hot for humans to bear, in various lurid colours, which have been turned into tourist sites and can be viewed for a small fee. We went into "Demon mountain white lake hell", which has a hot spring at 99.1 C, a lot of steam, and cages full of crocodiles. Go figure. I have no sympathy for crocodiles, steaming them alive seems too good for them, but I get the creeps whenever I'm in the same area as they are. I wonder if one can buy crocodile meat in Beppu? Apparently historically people were chucked into these hells by samurai as a form of torture, but I'm not sure I believe this tale. Samurai were noble and honourable, right? I think this hell is called the white lake hell because of the steam; it wasn't very white. Apparently the steam produces enough power to drag a single carriage, but for some reason noone in beppu has ever worked out how (or tried?) to harness the steam or the heat for power. I suppose selling overpriced tickets to Korean tourists is a more efficient use for them...
My other impressions of Beppu are that, besides being steamy and cold and smelly, it is a little backward compared to the previous country town I lived in. it's very pretty, being a narrow town pressed between steep mountains and the sea, and it has a typical mix of interesting bars and nightlife (I've already been on a tavern crawl on new years' eve, during which I was groped by a massively drunk overweight Japanese girl from her position sprawled on the floor by the door, and Emma was forcefed champagne by a self-styled hoodlum). People here are of course friendly and cheerful, and it seems like possibly a very nice place to spend a few years of my time. But it's early days yet, and I don't know yet what is going to come crawling out of those hells to get me...
Christmas Eve Fireworks Fantasia: The perfect combination of Japanese cute, Japanese weird and pointless western ceremony, christmas eve in Japan is like valentine's day in the west, and young couples go dating. in Beppu this has been turned into a fireworks festival, with traditional festival stalls selling overpriced greasy food, bands and then a big fireworks display. The bands were, in order: a group of children in santa outfits doing a dance; a heavy metal band ("visual" style), with a male and female singer singing passionately about various dark topics; a young female soulful singer-songwriter giving everyone a gentle and warm feeling; and a hip-hop band. All proceeded on the same stage within 10 minutes of one another, did a 30-40 minute set, and were introduced by a screamingly happy female MC. This dizzying combination of genres meant that the crowd was stuffed full of couples from every mix of sub-cultures on the peninsula... very strange. But the combination gets wierder, because after the bands finished the "fireworks fantasia" started. This consisted of fireworks set to a medley of really cheesy 80s romance songs, all narrated by a really cheesy narrator. We could tell he was cheesy because when the foreign music sets came on, he introduced them in English in a really cheerfully tacky American accent. Yay. I had been in Japan for 1 day when I was subjected to this several hour-long concatenation of craziness, and right down to the love-heart shaped firework explosions, it was comfortingly Japanese and completely disorienting.
Mochi making: traditionally in Japan at new year one eats o-mochi, rice cakes, and on the 31st December Emma and I went to her friend Sarah's house to make rice cakes. Sarah has lived in Japan since 1994, and is married to a Japanese Policeman, and is essentially immersed in rural life. She stands to inherit a massive orange farm, which is an interesting quandary about which I will say more in separate emails for those of you who are interested...
Onsen (hot spring) visits: I have been now to 2 onsens, one an open air onsen in the garden of hotel, in which I boiled my brain, and one in a rather exciting Kyushu specialty, the "family onsen" (i.e., love onsen), which is a private hot spring which you can book in advance for a one hour period. The onsen I visited had an inside and an outside bath, the outside bath overlooking hillsides and shadowed by a tree for privacy. I went with a family (who were, fortunately, in a different private room with their 3 rowdy children), and they recommended I experience this onsen with the aid of beer. It's a good idea, provided the water isn't so hot that it boils you while you drink - but fortunately this hot spring was perfect.
The sex museum: I went there today, just before I went into hell. This place contains a wax work of snow white having sex with the 7 dwarves (please press the big breast to see the dwarves move) while prince charming looks on in shock from a window; wax life-size replicas of animal genitals (including a whale's girly bits!) with pictures of some of the animals in action (my god giraffes are scary); a little cinema playing really hammy 80s Japanese police porn; wax replicas of jane fonda and some other western actress; and upstairs a long series of exhibits of early 20th century Japanese pornographic prints. All of these prints were under perspex covers which had carefully pixelated dots over the juicy parts of the picture, just like in a Japanese porno. How pointless! But the staff had conveniently knocked the prints so that the dirty bits were in many cases just slightly to the right or left of the key sections... also the front counter, which was staffed by a dour middle-aged lady, was selling a variety of quite inventive sex tools. Woohoo!
My descent into hell: the sex museum is rather appropriatley situated on "Demon Mountain", which hosts the 8 Beppu "hells", hot springs too hot for humans to bear, in various lurid colours, which have been turned into tourist sites and can be viewed for a small fee. We went into "Demon mountain white lake hell", which has a hot spring at 99.1 C, a lot of steam, and cages full of crocodiles. Go figure. I have no sympathy for crocodiles, steaming them alive seems too good for them, but I get the creeps whenever I'm in the same area as they are. I wonder if one can buy crocodile meat in Beppu? Apparently historically people were chucked into these hells by samurai as a form of torture, but I'm not sure I believe this tale. Samurai were noble and honourable, right? I think this hell is called the white lake hell because of the steam; it wasn't very white. Apparently the steam produces enough power to drag a single carriage, but for some reason noone in beppu has ever worked out how (or tried?) to harness the steam or the heat for power. I suppose selling overpriced tickets to Korean tourists is a more efficient use for them...
My other impressions of Beppu are that, besides being steamy and cold and smelly, it is a little backward compared to the previous country town I lived in. it's very pretty, being a narrow town pressed between steep mountains and the sea, and it has a typical mix of interesting bars and nightlife (I've already been on a tavern crawl on new years' eve, during which I was groped by a massively drunk overweight Japanese girl from her position sprawled on the floor by the door, and Emma was forcefed champagne by a self-styled hoodlum). People here are of course friendly and cheerful, and it seems like possibly a very nice place to spend a few years of my time. But it's early days yet, and I don't know yet what is going to come crawling out of those hells to get me...
posted by Sir S at 12:46 AM
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