Onsen action!

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Hey peeps, its Amit checking in. I just drank a bunch of shochu and wanted to stay and hangout more but I still have to pack for my train in 4 hrs... but let me start at the beginning.
So Shugi and Susan and I planned on leaving Kyoto, getting some Fugu and stopping off at the Fukoka, in the island of Kyushu, for a night of ramen and bi-jin: the two specialties of Fukoka (i.e. noodles and hot women). As fulfilling as this would have been I thought we might be better served by checking out the small town of Beppu on Kyushu which sits on some considerable geothermal activity and has steam vents and onsen (hot springs) all over. It also is near the sea in which fugu are found and we were pretty psyched about eating sashimi laced with tetrodotoxin, a K+ channel blocker, which is basically a nerve poison for all you non-doctor/nerd types. So we headed out from Kyoto and made a stop in Fukuoka for lunch. We only had an hour so we found this bare bones shop that served only ramen and jackpot! it was amazing. The ramen was so chewy and plentiful it makes me feel guilty for ever thinking of it as the crap I used to heat up in college when all the pizza places were closed.
After this we got to Beppu and checked into the usual ryokan (japanese style inn where they give u a pad to sleep on the floor and a pillow made of bean bags (character building). Of course we were there for the onsen so we decided to check out a Meiji era spa and get a sand bath. This basically amounted to us lying in a trench and having japanese grandmas shovel hot sand on top of us. It was really heavy! and to think they had to shovel it all... So after 10 min with only my head sticking out of the sand pit, sweat had pooled in my orbits and was dripping into my ears; one of the grandmas cameover and wiped my face off, so refreshing, and then went over to Shugi and wiped his face off with the same towel. Anyway after a total of 15 min they let us out and the feeling of breathing free without a ton of sand suffoating you... it was worth it.

So then we moved on to our fugu dinner which was a 100+ dollar affair, but hey, some things u just can't be cheap about. So I didn't realize this but fugu comes in several courses which = more parts of the fish. There was one course called shiroki which was translated as milt which added 50$ to the dinner. So of course I tried to be judicious and figure out if this was integral to the experience or could I skip out. So we broke out the japanese phrase book and milt = testicles. Yes sir, testicles = balls, 50$ for some damn blowfish balls. So I was about to pass but I saw the look on Shugi's face and I knew it was gonna be a long night... we all got the full course. We ordered some sake while waiting for the courses. Somehow I ordered the hot sake with the fugu tail in it and there it was: a cup of sake with a little flipper in it. The waitress proceeded to put a lighter to the sake lighting mine and Susan's on fire... guess it was to prove the proof. So while I was trying to get through the burning hot sake with flipper in it, the courses started arriving, fugu skin, fugu liver, fugu sashimi, fugu intestine, fugu stew, and lets not forget fugu balls. So the waitress brings out three plates with various sized things that look like huge pale slugs. Of course the largest of these slugs ends up with yours truly. I chop-sticked half of it and it bursts open, releasing a stream of gritty whitish stuff. What the heck, I throw the thing into my mouth and feel it squishing around my teeth and running down my throat. Thank god for the hot sake.

The next morning we wake up and I decide to hang back and relax cause I have to fly out the next day, Shugi and Susan take of for Hiroshima. All alone I go in search of dango-jiru the regional specialty which consists of miso soup with veggies and dumpling dough. I asked some locals and they pointed me to a place which was delicious. I ordered the usual lunchtime beer, but off course had no one to share it with this time, so I was quite tipsy after a 40 sized bottlef asahi. I headed back to the ryokan and slept it off. Waking up mid afternoon I decided to check out the hidden onsen which were somewhere on a nearby mountain. With a hand drawn map I headed out and of course managed to get on the wrong bus. Three buses later I landed up on the side of a highway and tried to correlate what I saw all around me with the squiggles the lady at the information desk drew me. I wandered up the mountain for about 40 min amongst hundreds of graves and finally I saw it!!! And it was a paradise... chyrsanthemums blooming, the stones of the onsen turned white by the minerals in the water, steam everywhere, a truly unadulterated spot. Paradise was occupied by about10 naked japanese dudes, but hey when in rome... So I doffed my clothes and hopped in. It was really hot! but really good. Nobody really spoke more than a few words of english and some of the guys had full body tattoes. According to the Lonely Planet, that meant they were Yakuza (Japanese mafia) but their tatooes were so amazing I had to hang. One guy had a huge dragon and a lady in kimono on his back and I pointed to it with a thumbs up and said oishii which means good, they all had a good laugh and then that dude offered me a cigarette. So there I was chilling with the Japanese mafia with their motorbikes parked at the side and it was getting really dark. I was having a great time but there was one more onsen to chk out with a mud bath. Regretfully, I trudged back down the moutain and checked out the mud bath. It wasnt so much mud as some dirty chunky water. There were also no lights in the place and it was bumming me out so I showered up and headed back into town. That's where I had some amazing yakitori and drank up with the owner and a local shochju salesman. The salesman gave me his card and a nice apron with the company logo. I love japanese people.

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