Ok..Umm...hmm, how many cities have i been in? Lots. Doing about 1 a day right now. Trying to make the rail pass worthwile. Funny how i remember doing South East asia i was feeling like we were blazing through it to fast (cuz James was doing everything and i was just hitching a ride pretty much). But now that im in the drivers seat, i feel like im pretty much doing the same thing. On top of the 3 wk limit of the rail pass, i guess its a matter of momentum. Its rather amazing covering so much ground in a given time cuz that evening ill try to remember what i did in the morning and it will seem like days ago!
Okkk, so in Okayama right now and managed to hit the free Internet facilities in the Prefectural Office before they closed. So far so good. Okayama is the town where Momotaru, who was apparently born from a peach, originated. The storys goes on that he befriended a monkey, a rooster, and something else and slew some deamon. I cant remember all the details, but momotarus picture is everywhere here.
So before Okayama, I was in Beppu which is one major tourist town. Understandably so though cuz everwhere you turn you see steam rising from some vent! Beppu is sort of like the Onsen capital of Japan. They have Jigoku which are steam vents for viewing only (called Hell pools), and then they have regular Onsen, some which you pay for, others, since hot spring water is so plentiful, that are free (there were 4 around my place that i stumbled across). They even have vents at restaurants which they use for cooking!
Before Beppu was Kumamoto which has a huge castle, and a pretty nice garden where i ran into a couple of friendly American girls whove apparently been traveling for 6 wks. One was from Colorado, the other from Montana. I think these are the first American girls i met that are traveling and doing the teaching thing as well. Its nice to hear other foreigners struggle with Japanese too!
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Small side note: Wassup with that US dollar?!?! I just changed money and the exchange rate was 110! Last time i changed it was 116! And another bank i visited (just to verify the rate) was 108! Ick. Did Arnold get elected? Whats going on in the states???
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Ok, off to see that castle, the gardens, and a all that other touristy stuff!
I'm sure Penny is dying to know how many times you visited bath houses in Beppu steam hell pools place - so you say some of them were free, eh? And that was a really nice story about the Peach Boy Wonder who became a legend. re: $, sorry to hear you got hosed by the rates. (and you exchange money? why not use ATM? rates are better, and you only pay one time transaction fee...)
Posted by: myong at September 25, 2003 01:18 PMJEezus. Griff kept saying you couldn't stop going to the bathouses babe. If you like naked men more than me...well...we're going to have to work on that. Oh BTW, please write ASAP since I just heard about the potentially historic earthquake that hit Hokkaido earlier this morning. And the tsunamis. No, I'm not freaking out, not really. Ok, I lied, I am.
Posted by: Penny at September 25, 2003 03:07 PM