Tuesday the 12th was a sort of “off day” after the action packed introduction to Beppu that was Monday. I didn’t have any concrete plans for my parents, although some sort of scheme with Choki-san was penciled into the afternoon timeslot. In short, my parents got to enjoy the charming luxuries of their ryokan while I slept in.
I wasn’t kidding when I said I had set them up in one kickass little place – check out this spanking awesome breakfast promptly laid out at 7:30am for my mother in the adjoining room.
Delicacies such as these can inspire even the most uncoordinated hairless ape to embrace that which are known as “chop-sticks.”
Dad got in on the fun too. I particularly love this picture because my father is smiling like a 10 year old on Christmas morning!
See what a tour of the Land of the Rising Sun can do for your general constitution? And that was only the morning of Day 3!
Before they could get into too much trouble I came by and picked them up for a morning spent visiting two local tourist attractions — the Oita Prefectural Aquarium, affectionately dubbed the “Umi-tamago” or Ocean Egg — and Mt. Takasaki, also known as “Monkey Mountain.” First we hopped a train from their neighborhood to downtown Beppu, where I and the rest of the cool people live.
Mom took the opportunity to poke curiously at an automated ticket machine for a moment before leaving the station.
Then we visited the Post Office for some cash (generally only P.O. ATMs process foreign credit/debit cards) and mom insisted we take her picture in front of a Japanese-language McDonald’s sign.
…random culture note – in Japan, Ronald McDonald is actually called Donald McDonald due to the difficulty native Japanese speakers have forming the straight “R” sound…
15 or so minutes later we hopped off the bus, Monkey/Marine combo attraction tickets in hand, and got ready to make like foreigners and wander around taking pictures in silly places – like the side of the goddamn road.
I should note this was my first time visiting either Umi-Tamago or Monkey Mountain, so I was wandering around just as cluelessly (and eagerly) as my parents.
We went to the aquarium first, as it was closer to the bus stop than the monkeys. Perhaps predictably, we . . . saw . . . lots . . . of . . . fish.
Now those last guys were totally awesome. I have no idea what they’re called, so if any of you budding marine biology geeks out there know please contact me, but they were called something to the equivalent of “saber” or “rapier” fish in Japanese. I think the resemblance is self-evident!
According to the display signs these guys feed by sitting motionless in the water, and when a tasty minnow swims by they shorten into an “S” shape and then dart a meter or so forwards and snap up the victim. When not doing the aforementioned vicious attacks, they just slowly hover through the water perfectly straight by using tiny filament like fins along the tops and bottoms of their bodies. Totally, totally awesome fish!
The aquarium also had a pretty awesome sardine tank, a jellyfish display, and a really neat rockface that was home to perhaps 2 dozen moray eels of all different types.
They even had a play-area where children could turn a crank to make a giant shark eat some helpless fish!
The highlight though, hands down, was the walrus tank. Now I’ve been to a few aquariums in my time, but it occurred to me as we followed the signs to our destiny that I had never actually seen a walrus in person, only on Discovery Channel TV shows and the like and usually just big fat males sumo-ing each other around some beach in California.
If you’ve never seen a walrus swimming underwater, you haven’t lived.
And if you’ve never seen a parent place their three year old child directly in front of the glass in order to take a picture, and then have a walrus immediately swim directly over and SIT on the other side of the 4 inch thick glass, press its face against said glass, and stare the child straight in the eyes…
Well, let’s just say it was most-excellent and extremely creepy at the same time. By the way, you’ll notice there isn’t actually a three year old child in that picture… she had already run screaming in terror to the far corner of the room by the time dad whipped out his camera.
We aren’t done yet folks! No no, we’ve only just begun. It took a long spell at the aquarium’s waterfront to get over the disturbingly anthropomorphic behavior of our mustachioed friend…
…but before too long we were rested and composed enough to seek out the path that leadeth to the monkeys…
Monkey mountain, in short, dramatically exceeded all possible expectations. As I said above, I had never been there, nor had I ever heard about anyone else’s experience during a visit, so the only things we were certain of as we passed through the gates were:
- this is a mountain
- there will be monkeys
Maybe some of you are from places where monkeys are more… common. But for a North American, the only primate regularly on display is the naked ape. The prospect of seeing a monkey, any monkey, wandering around in its natural habitat was extremely exciting for all three brave explorers of the Heath Clan. Eyes peeled, 3 abreast, we walked slowly up the paved walk into the initial depths of monkey land. We would have gone home happy having seen only one monkey… our expectations were about to be shattered.
There it was, lumbering down the walk! A MONKEY! Quick, take a picture before it scampers away!
…rushed & blurry picture taken… Hmm, the monkey doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. It looks like it’s having a snack, rather than scampering away from us, in the end it eyes us lazily as we walk past.
Further ahead, we found a nice sculpture of… can you guess? Monkeys! The inscription says something to the effect of “this is Mt. Monkey, there are monkeys here, the monkeys have been here a long time, did we mention there are monkeys?”
Past the sculpture, all that lay ahead of us was several flights of concrete steps up to a plateau of sorts. It was as we slowly ascended these stairs that we started to realize the true extent of our underestimation of monkey-land. Suddenly… there… were… monkeys… every… five… feet!
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t wear pants and sat on the ground all day? Monkeys know – you get a pair of absolutely bodacious calluses on your ass.
And what would happen if you had tons of monkey children year after year? You would get super sweet mommy-monkey nipples.
Haha, yeah baby!
We weren’t the only foreigners there that day either, although this guy didn’t really seem to be enjoying himself.
I’m not sure what his problem was though, the monkeys were having a blast!
Up on that plateau area I mentioned they really were just about everywhere, and either I was imagining it or more were turning up every minute. It almost looked like they were waiting for something.
I was right, the monkeys were coming from all directions now, this picture was taken in the calm before the storm.
Completely by chance, we had arrived 5 minutes before the daily feeding session for the larger of the two monkey clans. Two clans reside on monkey mountain, one numbering perhaps 750 monkeys and the other closer to 500. They are fed once a day during the summer and twice daily during the winter to account for the lack of edible vegetation on the mountain. At precisely 2pm a bell was rung, getting the attention of every monkey in sight, and then all hell broke loose.
Have you ever seen one of the classic Hitchcock horror films, where one particular species by the thousands wreaks havoc on the poor humans? If he made one with monkeys, it would definitely look exactly like this…
And this…
And this…
You can’t have a clan without an alpha male, and big boss monkey got to have his lunchie-munchies on his own special stump.
All the while during the feeding frenzy we were treated to an entertaining play-by-play from probably the most casual & relaxed grown Japanese man you’ll ever see in your life.
Generally, unable to fight safely through the throngs of adults, the juvenile monkeys ate last. They also just kinda goofed around, a lot like human children when you get right down to it.
This was a long day, and I’m exhausted again just writing about it. We’re up to 1,500 words and still got a ways to go!
After the Monkey / Marine adventure we stopped for lunch at Beppu-eki (train station) where Choki-san picked us up for a nice drive through the countryside. On the way out of town we stopped at a tourist spot called “Umi-jigoku,” which literally means “Ocean Hell.”
It’s famous for two main reasons, firstly, in the ponds around the jigoku they have these awesome giant lily pads that when full grown can support the weight of a small child.
Secondly, and the origin of the name, is this breathtaking azure “hell.”
The difference between a jigoku (“hell”) and an onsen (“hot spring”) is that jigoku have mineral & metal compositions that make them toxic to humans. Outside of that, they are both just geothermically heated artesian wells. So while you could never bathe in the Umi-jigoku, you could certainly boil some delicious eggs! Hoo-ah!
Elsewhere on the Umi-jigoku grounds there was a simple but beautiful shinto shrine. This particular shrine was built to honor a local fox kami, and people who stopped to pay their respects could expect good luck in health, finances, and driving.
Before approaching the shrine it is customary to ritually purify yourself at a provided basin.
Lastly, these red gates are always the entrance for shinto shrines.
Note the collections of small rocks and pebbles atop the gate – if you can toss a small stone and have it land and stay on the gate this is pretty much a freaking ton of good luck. It has to be reported that your valiant author landed a stone on his first try, while said author’s father, after failing on nearly 10 attempts, satisfied himself by taking advantage of his unnatural height and *placing* a stone up there by hand. Here is the sneaky man himself, posing in front of another ferric spring.
After seeing what there was to see at Umi-jigoku, we packed back into Choki-san’s toyota and headed up over the mountains towards a little mountain resort by the name of Yufuin. Once over the mountains we stopped at an overlook to take in the beautiful Yufu valley.
Choki-san found a convenient parking spot and then we set out on foot to stroll through the scenic streets and shops of the town. Along the way we passed a beautiful, natural Japanese creek winding its way through town.
Eventually we found our way to a spring-fed pond and took a group photo with the resident flock of ducks.
While dad was on his knees digging through his camera bag one rather bold duck came over and helped him – by pecking him in the shoulder. Ultimately, we realized he just wanted his portrait taken.
Lastly, we took a moment to appreciate the sight of this heron resting atop another shinto gate, this one constructed of stone.
Yufuin could be reasonably swapped with quite a few small mountain hamlets. It’s a beautiful, serene place and I hope I can go back sometime, preferably to stay for a few days in a local inn and really experience what the valley has to offer.
Safely back in Beppu, my parents rested for awhile at my apartment as dusk settled over the skyline, then they made their way back to the ryokan and got some much needed rest.
