One more for the list

Do you have a personal list of crazy things you have done? We added to ours today, because today we took the train to Ibusuki to take a sand bath.

Ibusuki is about a 90 minute train ride south of Kagoshima - it is a small town of about 40,000, looking kind of down on its heels. But.... They have hot springs heated by a local volcano, and those springs run out onto the beach. People come from all over to be buried in the sand and have a good steam..

We arrived at the reception desk and were issued yukatas (cotton robes), small towels and told to change into the robes - no underwear! Okay,then. We went off to the change rooms where we changed into our robes and flip flops, then met on the walkway outside. When the tide is out and the weather right they dig little trenches right on the beach, but the tide was in so went into an enclosure where the attendants were waiting with their shovels. They instructed us how to get settled, with our towels around our necks. Once we were settled they proceeded to shovel the hot sand over us. It was surprisingly heavy and quite hot. We were told to stay put for ten minutes.

It was not the thing for people with claustrophobia, that's for sure. It seemed like a very long ten minutes, but eventually it was time and we sat up and brushed the sand off. At that point we returned to the main building for a big rinse off, and then into the usual Japanese bath process. Since we had a showered this morning, had a bath at noon and another bath tonight before bed we are very squeaky clean. And tomorrow we head off to a town of hot springs, so more hot bath adventures await. We'll be without Internet for a few days, so we'll check in again next week.

Till then, here are the pictures from today's adventure:

Another city, another meal.

We're in Kagoshima, where they grow their radishes big and their sweet potatoes purple. We made a reservation at a restaurant not far from our hotel, and presented ourselves at 6:00. It was early enough that it wasn't too busy and the staff had a little more time to explain things to us. We wanted to try local dishes, and they had a set dinner that covered pretty much everything. A mere twelve courses - they didn't seem to find it unusual that we would order one meal and share it, which was good 'cause it was a pile of food. We ordered shochu to drink, which is a form of firewater distilled from sweet potatoes - it was actually pretty good and went well with the food.

We almost wound up with the dreaded chicken sashimi, but caught that in time and had the tuna instead. There's always fish and seafood in a Japanese meal, but we're in pork country here, so we had several variations on the pork theme.

Dinner included:
Salted fish guts (tiny little dish of something salty - if we hadn't known the name we wouldn't have blinked at it)
Kibinago sushi - little silver fish fillets serve raw with a yummy sauce
Lettuce with salad dressing
A tray of mysterious pickles
Tonkatsu - breaded pork cutlet with sesame sauce
Bonita sashimi
Tonkotsu - braised pork stew with potatoes and veg, not to be confused with the pork cutlet
Satsuma pork ribs
2 large cooked snails and cucumbers in vinegar
Chicken miso soup
More mysterious pickles
Sakesushi - raw fish and seafood over rice tossed with a lot of sake
Dessert - sweet potato jelly made from bean jam was the menu description - one piece of purple jello, one sort of whitish, neither a big taste sensation.

We had a great time - enjoyed the food, enjoyed the place, and then finished the evening with a visit to the communal bath on the roof of the hotel (communal, but segregated)

Confusing sign of the day.

Just.... Oh, don't even ask.....

When in Rome...

Oh yes, we did!

When we were planning our trip Wilf and I agreed that we wanted to try the local specialties in the areas we visited. 'We'll keep and open mind and be adventurous', we said. We gave ourselves two up front exemptions - we couldn't face the idea of chicken sashimi (raw chicken-can't do it) and we wouldn't try whale. But other than that - let's be brave.

Tonight we found the restaurant we were looking for (that always feels like such a triumph). From street level we went up to the second floor of Kome no Kura, where we were greeted. Once our shoes were off we were taken to a little room with a table. Thankfully there was a well for our feet, which is more comfortable than sitting on the floor. When we were ready to order we pressed a button and there was a sound like a chirping bird. A moment later a little door slid open and there was our server. No one told him about us I guess - the look on his face when he saw the two gaijin was priceless - we nearly laughed out loud.

Anyhow, we ordered the following:
Takana char-han (Chinese fried rice with Tanaka pickles)

Karashi renkon (lotus root stuffed with mustard and deep fried)

Umano shim ofuri sashi (horse meat sashimi)

Chicken tsukine (ground chicken wrapped around a bamboo pole, cooked then served with a raw egg poured over)

Glasses of shochu, which is a distilled spirit.

It was all delicious!

Nagasaki

We spent two nights in Nagasaki, which gave us a chance to see a bit of the city. Nagasaki is on the southern island of Kyushu, a two hour plane ride from Tokyo. It is warm enough that palm trees grow here, but not a tropical climate.

Nagasaki was the site of contact between Japan and Europe. The shogunate would only allow trade with the Dutch for 200 plus years, and only under severe constraints. The traders were sequestered upon an artificial island in the harbour - the island of Dejima. Over time land was reclaimed and Dejima is now several blocks inland, but the site has been med and is being restored. We spent an interesting morning wandering the site, looking at the reconstructed buildings and warehouses, and marvelling at the life those traders must have lived - locked onto the island, so far from home, in such an alien culture.

Our afternoon visit was a more somber affair - we went to the Atomic Bomb museum, the Hypocenter Park and the Peace Park. It is shocking and unsettling to realize that everything in this bustling,modern city is new, relatively speaking. 67 years ago everything was burnt or blasted away in a flash.