Throwback Thursday: One Year in Beppu

 

I’ve gotten really behind with posting again, and I apologise for that. I’ve never been good at sticking to a routine, no matter how hard I try. But I’ve been wanting to make a post for a while about how I’ve now completed my first year in Japan!

Hi No Umi Festival

Last weekend was Beppu’s biggest summer festival – the Hi No Umi (translating roughly to ‘sea of fire’) Festival. It takes place every year at the end of July, and has festival stands selling food and toys, music and dance performances, and the main event – fireworks!

Throwback Thursday: Beppu’s African Safari

One of the things I was most surprised to find that Beppu had in the surrounding area when I got here was the African Safari. Although it’s located a bit further away from the central city area, it’s still a popular tourist spot and a good way to spend half a day or so, plus you can get there by bus from Beppu Station.

But the best thing about it? You can feed the animals!!

Throwback Thursday: Sakura in Beppu

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I returned home for a week to visit my family so that prevented me from writing for 2 weeks and then the last two weeks have just been very busy. I’ll try to catch up and get back to the regular schedule~

This week’s Throwback Thursday is about sakura (cherry blossom) season, a much anticipated time of year in Japan and a time when everything is cloaked in a beautiful layer of pink.

Throwback Thursday: Going to the Opticians in Japan

Since coming to Japan, I’d noticed that my eyes felt a lot more tired than usual. I wasn’t sure whether this was due to my slightly unideal sleep schedule, the fluorescent lights at work, or using computers too long now that I have an office job for the first time. But after half a year here, I’d decided it was time to try to do something about it.

Throwback Thursday: Shrine Illuminations

Although I’ve already written about one illumination event that I went to, I thought I’d write my experience of another one as around Bonfire Night (5th November) there was an illumination by teamLab at Usa Shrine, the shrine I talked about visiting before.

Throwback Thursday: Kunisaki Peninsula

The day after I went to Kannawa for the first time (see last post), I went on a local bus tour with one of the ALTs here and her husband. Our tour location? The Kunisaki Peninsula, an area with numerous interesting sightseeing spots and landmarks.  It’s also pretty hard to get to some places without a car, so this is a useful way to see some sights that might normally be inaccessible if you can’t drive, like me.

The tour we took was the “Rokugo Manzan” tour (literally meaning “Six Towns, Full Mountain, as the region was originally divided into 6 areas, with Mount Futago in the centre). This tour focuses on various Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in the area.

Throwback Thursday: Kannawa & Beppu Ropeway

Today I thought I’d write about my first trip to one of the other Beppu Hatto – a group of 8 hot spring districts in Beppu. Two of my co-workers and I went to Kannawa, an area with traditional narrow stone-paved roads, where steam rises from the drains to give it a mysterious atmosphere.

Throwback Thursday: First Trip to Yufuin

The second town outside of Beppu that I visited after getting here was Beppu’s rival onsen town, Yufuin, which has the second most amount of hot spring sources in the whole of Japan, after Beppu. Yufuin is a more traditional-looking town in comparison, and is popular even with Japanese tourists.

Me and one of the ALTs from Beppu had been invited to go watch a play in the evening, but we decided to head over for midday so as to explore the town beforehand.

Throwback Thursday: Going to the Hairdresser’s

So today I thought I’d write about an experience that can be daunting for foreigners living in Japan – going to the hairdresser’s.

I’d been to the hairdresser’s in Japan before on my year abroad (to get highlights put in, which went really well) but since I didn’t write about that experience I thought I’d write about my more recent one.