kirishima and baseball

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As we were driving towards Kirishima, we saw a baseball center and we thought we should give it a go. Baseball is the national sport of Japan sometimes I wonder why it's not as popular in other countries. I've never watched a baseball game or played baseball myself.

It was surprisingly fun. It might look like it's just hitting a ball but it's really challenging. 90%!o(MISSING)f the time the ball was going so fast I can't even touch it. My success rate increased after I changed to a lower speed. After this experience, we were really looking forward to the baseball game that we booked for our last day in Japan.

Then we head on to the famous onsen at Kirishima hotel. I saw this place on a brochure at a train station and thought it looked really good. Here is the hotel website http://www.kirishima-hotel.jp/. The onsen is like a huge complex. The main one is the biggest onsen in the middle. On each side there are a few small onsens that are also very nice. I cleaned myself in the shower area, stayed in the common bath for a little while and tried a few different onsens such as onsen inside a hollow tree log. The whole time there were 5 or 6 other ladies with me. I felt a little akward because I went through the entire process without any clothes or even a towel on me. All the Japanese ladies seemed to be totally comfortable with it. Some of them even tried to chat with me.

Then there came my most embarassing moment. The big onsen in the middle of the complex was labelled a "mix onsen" which means both men and female can use it at the same time. I didn't think I should enter the mix onsen without any clothes so I wrapped myself in a big towel. I knew I was wrong when I entered the mix onsen. There was not a single lady in there. What's more embarassing is that all the men were naked! I'm pretty sure they saw me but they were all just minding their own business and completely ignored my existence. Lol I didnt' expect to see so many naked men. Later on I found out when they say "mix onsen" it usually means "male onsen" cos not many female want to share the area with a bunch of naked men. This was completely new to me.

As usual our dinner was a big banquet with at least 12 courses of food. I felt bad everytime we had to leave something on the plate but there was no way we could finish everything. The breakfast was a buffet which had a great selection of western style and Japanese style food.

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