Beppu

Without planning it, we went to the two places in Japan that have hot sand baths on the same day. Beppu is the other major hot springs resort town in Kyushu. It was pretty hard finding Ryokan on short notice so went from the far southwest corner to the far northeast corner of Kyushu when we found some.

Not too much exciting happened in either town except we totally splurged on ourselves. If the photos and videos seem pretentious it's because they are :).

The Sanso Kannawaen is a modern Ryokan on a large hill above Beppu. The room was like a huge apartment and included our own onsen which was nice because the public onsens are separated by gender.

The breakfast was absolutely fantastic with multiple food types. But the most amazing part was the dinner. It was a set dinner called kaiseki. These emphasize small portions of regional dishes and are multi-course. Ours was 10 courses! It included two servings of lobster and countless other items. I posted the menu if you're interested.

Outside of the ryokan are several natural geysers and boiling springs like in Yellowstone National Park. They're called "hells" for some strange reason. We chose a random one to visit and it was pretty fantastic.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hm5ZLwQxZfWGVSxK6En savoir plus