Thanksgiving trip to Beppu and Oita

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in a very memorable and blended fashion! We planned a trip with our good friends, Chad and Sloan Guisinger that combined a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with a quintessential Japanese get away to Oita and Beppu from Friday to Sunday.

We started off our adventures by going to the Tokyo Temple (since Thanksgiving is not a Japanese holiday it was operating on its regular schedule!). This visit will likely be our last time in the Tokyo Temple. It was so lovely and peaceful and the perfect start to a day of Thanksgiving.(we actually took this picture AFTER we came out of the temple and changed our clothes - Kimball did not wear jeans to the temple)

Every year the New Sanno Hotel hosts a Thanksgiving buffet. We have heard such good things about it that we just had to try it for our final Thanksgiving in Japan. But we had some time before our reservation so we took the train to Otemachi to visit the Japan's first Giving Machine.

This is the first time there has been a Giving Machine in Japan and we had never tried one ourselves. It was awesome! We bought meals and treats for families in Japan (opted to donate to the locale charities). We made it back just in time to be seated for the buffet. It was FEAST!

I really love the style of the New Sanno Hotel - its one of my favorite spots in Tokyo and its right by the Tokyo Temple - super convenient if you want to spend the night in town.

After dinner we walked to the Roppongi Hills area to see the 800,000 lights that decorate Keyakizaka Street. At first we were lost - we couldn't figure out where to see the lights. Surely if it is 800,000 we're gonna see them. But we couldn't see anything! Just as we were about to give up - they turned ON - and by chance we were standing right on the street!

The cool view that everyone wants is looking down the street with the Tokyo Tower lit up at the end. In order to get "the shot" people were crowded on ether side of the street at a crosswalk near the top of the street. When the light turned green, the police would stand in the street with caution tape and the whole crowd of people crammed together in the crosswalk trying to take a picture. Then, as soon as the light turned red the police began blowing a whistle and all the people headed back to either side of the street to wait for the next cycle. Very orderly and at the same time, chaos!

Before the lights turned on -

After the lights turned on -

Giant spider sculpture on the Mori Plaza - who knows why (art?)

The next morning we drove to Haneda and caught a flight to Oita. View from the plane on the Guisinger's side - Fuji with snow.

Our first stop was to visit Kifune Castle. It was a quirky castle with a live albino snake as its "mascot" and grantor of Good Luck. The caretaker was extremely friendly and let us pet the snake, but then really pressured us to buy a "good luck" amulet. (we whispered it was the snake petting fee). He told us after we bought two that we shouldn't open up the folded paper, but Chad and Sloan told us the next day they opened theirs and found little bits of snake skin inside. I think I'll leave mine in its plastic wrapper.

This castle had some beautiful paintings from the Edo period. There were 53 rest stops along the road from Edo to Kyoto and there is a painting for each of them. From what we gathered these paintings were widely distributed at the time and functioned like a travel guide, so travelers would know what to expect at each stop.

Everywhere you look there were antiques - some old and others really old. There were also some very interesting plaster works - a tiger and a dragon.

The view from the top was really nice, but it felt dangerous up there. The walkway was slanted and it felt "soft" in certain places.

Our next stop was the Beppu Ropeway (EVERY town in with a hill has a ropeway!) This ropeway has two claims to fame - it was selected by CNN as one of the "best 34 mountain views in Japan" AND it is the largest cable car in Kyushu with a maximum capacity of 101 passenger. We were the last people to board our tram and as we crammed on, Chad said he felt like passenger #101!

Good thing I don't have claustrophobia or fear of heights! But the views made it worth the stress.

When we got off the tram we headed into town to check into our hotel and then we turned around and left for the Hyotan Onsen. Its a day spa type onsen with a lot of pools (both indoor and outdoor). There were a few unique things about this onsen:

1. The Sand Baths - Hot steam from the ground heats the sand from below in a large covered room. You can dig a hole and bury yourself. They have a wood block to rest your head on and then you just steam in the sand. It's like a weighted blanket. But there are signs warn you not to stay under too long (15 min max) or you could get burned! Sloan fell asleep and I wasn't sure what to do, so after about 20 min I figured I had to wake her up. (I wish we had pictures of the Sand Bath, but taking pics at an onsen is strictly forbidden!)

2. There are tons of different pools to soak in and some that have waterfalls you can stand under. It was like getting a massage. Also we read that some pools were over 100 years old! This onsen has been in business since 1920.

3. You can have dinner here by steaming your food in the hot springs (not the same ones you bathe in, haha). It's possible to do the cooking (steaming) yourself, but we opted to let them steam it for us. We forgot to take a pic before we ate it all - but it looked just like this one I pulled from their website. After we ate we stopped by the steaming stations and took a pic.

The next morning we drove to the Aso Kuju National Park with two main stops in mind - Tao no Oka to see a taiko drum performance and Nakadake crater - the largest active volcano in Japan and among the largest in the world. Along the way we stopped by Yufuin and visited Lake Kinrin. It's a scenic little lake in the middle of town. The fall colors were gorgeous and because it was a cool fall morning there was mist on the lake when we first got there.

The Tao Drum troupe was great but even better than the actual performance was the setting they perform in - the view was spectacular!

We finally made it to the volcano with only about 30 min to look around before the visitor areas closed. It was huge and steaming and impressive.

Along the drive we came across an area where some very eccentric person decided to make topiary animals all over the place. The pictures don't really capture the extent of it, but there were hundreds of trees sculpted into various birds and other creatures. Why? How?

Our final stop of the day was to the Yukemuri Observation Deck which looks out over Beppu. At night on the weekends they put some lights on the steam that comes up from the ground all around the town. Its just crazy that the city is built on and around all this geothermal ground.

On Sunday morning we drove about 30 min to the next town over - Oita so that we could attend church. The Oita Ward was small but very nice and very friendly. Their church building was a very similar plan to the one we attend in Yamato.

Our flight home wasn't until 6pm so after church we had all afternoon to explore the 7 Hells of Beppu. We only made it to 4 of the 7. Each of the ones we visited was beautiful and the ground around them are all landscaped so nicely.

The first pond we visited was Umi Jigoku or the Blue pond. IAt this same site there was also a smaller pool that was very red! There was Japanese garden and a free foot bath. Very relaxing!

The second pond we went to was right next door but it was totally different. It was called Oniishibozu Jigoku. The mud puddles that bubble up are supposed to look like the shaven heads of monks. Conditions have to be just right in order to get the perfect round mud bubbles and on the day we were there we got flat bubbles.

The third pool was called Shiraike Jigoku - meaning "white pond hell". It was a milky greenish color while we were there. In case you're wondering -yes, they all smell of sulfur! One fun thing about his pond was that it also had a small aquarium with some beautiful fish. Nice little addition to our stop.

We had read about a really good place to eat that was nearby - Okamotoya. When we arrived we were surprised that they had several parking lot worker making sure everyone could get in and out of the parking lot. I guess its super popular and they need parking attendants to keep it all flowing smoothly. Their menu is quite simple and again its based on steamed foods. Here their specialties were steamed eggs over rice, karaage, and steamed pudding. The food was great and there was such a nice view from their location. Out in front of the restaurant they have steam crates where they do the cooking. They also have some interesting steam huts. We noticed them all around this area. I'm not sure what happens in there - bathing or cooking,??

I forgot to take a pic of my pudding so I found one online.

Our final pond was Chinoike Jigoku - meaning Blood pond. It was large and very hot, but not as red as the small pool at Umi Jigoju. We read that sometimes the steam vents in this pond can get plugged up with mud and that is a bad thing because then they explode. So, to prevent that from happening, every so often men will go out onto the pond in wooden boats with long pole and clear the areas that are venting the steam. They pond is over 175 degrees. We saw some pictures of them doing it - that would scare me to death. The boats are small and not that stable looking. One wrong move and you're toast!