The Beppu seaside hotel cluster as seen from Kitahama. Beppu is probably the prefecture's single strangest place, acre for acre, reeking fairly of the absurd and improbable.
Before HPC though I'd taken my bike in for some service and spent the rest of the day mulling around Beppu. I am now the proud owner of a new rear sprocket group and a new wheel to accommodate it since my last one was a little, uh, behind the times. Like, fifteen years behind. I've also established a relationship with the small Cycle Shop Daito in Nagahama-cho, Oita City, about a block away from where I used to live. Why am I driving so far to have my bike serviced you ask? The owner of the local bike shop in Kusu, nice as he may be, plainly admitted to me he didn't know a thing about road bikes, mainly working on and selling the ubiquitous mamacharis bikes that, if stacked on top of each other, would certainly reach to the asteroid belt. For that matter, in all my travels of this fine prefecture I have yet to find a serious cycle shop like Daito's--cycling is a niche sport/recreation here in Japan since the humble bicycle is mainly just a cheap means to the end of urban human transport. Anyways, no more mis-shifts and a shiny, spiffy rim to boot.
Hit Parade Club is one place that makes you glad Japan has a strict lockdown on things like, oh, hash or LSD--you just don't need anything other than your own brain and maybe some alcohol to feel the surreal in here.
I put the bike to work in Beppu, a city built on a really long slope reaching from the sea at Kitahama Beach up a couple hundred meters and inland and a few kilometers to the base of Mt. Tsurumi. I put myself to work as well since Beppu is only flat at the shore and when one is riding perpendicular to the slope. First order of business on this inaugural trip to Beppu was to try to get in touch with my old friend Yoko who lives down the road from the main station here. I had spend a good twenty minutes writing out a note in Japanese to her expecting her to be at work and me having to hand it to her mother, but when I got to her house and rung the bell, there she appeared at the door. We stared for a few seconds, neither really believing what we were seeing until finally I let out a weak croak of "Yoko?" For my part, I actually didn't entirely recognize here because when I'd known her three years back her hair was dyed bright orange and frizzed out into some kind of lion's mane. Now it was its natural black, straight and a bit shorter. She invited me in, we hugged, talked, drank tea and discussed hot springs. Some things never change. Sadly, Yoko will be moving all the way to Yokohama in six months and I'll lose yet another friend in Oita to the Tokyo-Yokohama-Chiba metropolis. Then again, this isn't three years ago--we're older, graduated, moving on with our lives and I should feel lucky to have even seen a handful of my old friends instead of melancholy.
Leaving Yoko's I pointed the bike west, uphill, towards the Kannawa neighborhood and the Jigoku Meguri--Beppu's famed "Hell Baths". My favorite bath in the city is located at the top of the slope, Oniishi Onsen, or "Demon Rock Spa", and it was looking like I would need it since this climb never seemed to end and I was dripping--DRIPPING--with sweat despite the rapidly declining autumn temperatures. What really makes Oniishi a special place to get nude at is its outdoor bath, a rooftop wooden tub that looks out majestically on the entire city. The trick is to be there for what photographer's call "The Golden Hour", just before sunset. Saturday evening was relatively packed, but nobody bothered me after I broke out the book and read in front of the backdrop of Beppu from above.
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After Oniishi and HPC I wandered Beppu on my bike in a state of mild inebriation, finding as many vibrant side streets packed with revelers as sad, dark alleys devoid of life in this entertainment mecca on the decline. Or maybe it's leveling out, I don't know. Anyways, I had a couple hard boiled eggs at an oden stand manned by an old woman and watched some baseball, then found a yakitori shop and had a beer and some skewers. Yeah, HPC is known for the show, not the food. I found my way back to my car after an hour of that, right where I left it in a residential neighborhood's idle dirt lot. Every 'hood round here has one, who knows why.
If you're thinking I drove while drunk, you're wrong, but if you think I had anywhere else to stay tonight, well...I slept in my car. Just like Matt Farley, motivational speaker (except he had a van). I brought blankets anticipating none of the Beppu-ites would remember or even care that I didn't live in the city, but it was still piercingly cold in the dead of night. I managed to uncomfortably sleep until 5:30AM when I was awoken by noises outside near my car. Through steamed windows I saw a flickering light and movement. When I wiped the condensation aside I discovered that a man had started a bonfire in the middle of the nearest intersection. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, the decision to flee came suddenly.
The real story behind this photo is that I'm looking at a shiney 500 yen coin on the grass and have to hold myself back not to snatch it up greedily. And the hat...ummm...
I had to get to Tsukumi by 10AM anyways for the start of the music festival there, so why not with three hours of fitful sleep, fumes in the gas tank and chased away by a possible arsonist? I hit the road, hopping on the desolate expressway in Oita and punching it to the extent my 660cc engine kei-car can punch anything. I arrived in Tsukumi around 7AM and immediately noticed a change since my last trip in the summer--the air was much clearer when moisture didn't trap the concrete factories' fumes. After parking my car at Lisa's apartment I broke out the bike and started my excursion around the city, genuinely stopping earlybirds in their tracks when they saw this foreigner on a hot shit set of wheels flying by at thirty KPH. One thing that had perplexed me when I last came to the city were the plethora of rails that started on the sides of roads and snaked up into the mountains, some having little monorail cars, they resembled a scaled down mine car only way too lightweight. I finally found out they are used to ferry down kabosu limes from mountainside plantations, which I just think is so cute.
Riding around Tsukumi the main thing I was looking for was a bath, actually. I asked what locals I could find in the morning and they all said there were none in the entire city. That seemed near scandalous to me, but two hours of riding produced no results. I felt filthy and knew Lisa was either still asleep or out at taiko practice for the festival, so no go on that front. I finally ended up at Otomo Park, the final resting place of Oita's last great feudal leader--at that time the region was called "Bungo"--that overlooked the city. Since nobody was around and there was a cold water faucet I decided to at least shave, brush my teeth, wash my face and change my clothes. The park had a pretty nice view though, and halfway through changing I became mesmerized by it, staring for a little bit while standing in my undies. Hey, it's a really nice view!
I'll finish up the rest of this post tomorrow, after sumo practice. There I go again, mentioning sumo practice and not elaborating. Ha! Eat it! To all my lady fans out there though, know that I've actually lost five kilos since coming to Japan. Confirmed on the scales last Wednesday at Ryumon no Taki Onsen in beautiful Kokonoe-machi. Feel the burn!
--Matt
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