Let's Get Naked...Part II
The Onsen in Beppu was gargantuan by comparison. We jumbled into the entrance of the Heotan Onsen in Beppu, and were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people waiting to get in. The parking lot was packed, and it took a few minutes to secure for ourselves, ball towels, tickets for entry, lockers etc…Once we donned our awkward wooden clog like sandals the entrance opened up to a huge waiting area with tons of vending machines and picnic tables scattered about a large rectangular open air room.
One of the reasons this Onsen sounded so appealing was due to its “hot sand bath” facilities. So we went to our respective gender based locker rooms and disrobed our civilian garb before re…robing for the sand bath. The sand bath area is co-ed for families and spouses and what not, and despite the fact that all you had to do was cover yourself in sand and relax, we were unsure of what to do once arriving in the room. The sand room was a large concrete rectangular room, with 6 areas about bed width and about 20 feet long, spread down the room. It wasn’t really possible to bury yourself and then poor more sand on top of yourself, so the buddy system would have to be initiated. After standing around awkwardly trying to gauge the best method for sand immersion and relaxation El Angel Solo and I picked a spot and began experimenting.
Unlike the beach, the hotter sand was farther below the surface, so I dug myself a little trench and started piling the sand on while El Angel Solo hit me with the plastic sand scooper that was nearby. It’s difficult to describe the sensation of sitting in a pool of hot sand with someone gently pouring the fine grains on top of the thin layer of fabric separating my skin from the heat. I guess sensual would be a good word. The sand feels like weighted water essentially, it flows over me, leaving only heat in its wake, it ripples, and rains from the scooper, and I quickly enter the relaxed mode of a man with nothing to think about but the euphoria rising from somewhere within me. Then the cackle of my neighbor breaks the spell, “Alright I’m done, do me now.”
It’s hard to return a comment sufficiently thanking her for her small labor, but reminding her that she’s an impatient nuisance who with one comment wrecked everything she had done for the five minutes before. So I just say, “Sit over there and wait a god damned minute, I’m relaxing for the love of crap.”
Getting up in hot sand when you’re a hairy bastard is a bit tricky, suffice to say there was more sand than skin in most places. So I began pouring sand on El Angel Solo, after a few minutes I just poured a ton of sand on her breasts, which she liked at first but eventually told me to stop, I figured this was the quickest way to piss her off so I could wash the sand off all the uncomfortable nooks and crannies where it had accumulated. I stood up, and when I looked over, El Charro had a whole &*^$ing Japanese family pouring sand on him, a little girl, wife, and husband. He said it had nothing to do with him, for some reason they had just volunteered to do it. Lucky bastard. He naturally enjoyed the experience more, and stayed for quite a while.
El Angel Solo and I departed at our respective gender based locker rooms and I quickly disrobed and headed for the shower stools. It only takes one Onsen experience for the routine to click, and you become much more comfortable with the overall environment. In the stool shower room there were at least 6 different indoor pools, as well as outdoor pools, 2 different saunas and my favorite room that we’ll get to later. Though I didn’t do it that day, you can get the closest shave of your life with a simple Bic at the Onsen, the air is so permeated with heat and moisture that you won’t even cut yourself, and it’s a chin like a baby’s ass for 24 hours.
I scooted out to the outdoor pool and moved toward the corner which was empty of patrons, there was a sign at the end of the pool that I couldn’t read, but it apparently read, “do not walk this way magma is being injected into the pool and it’s hotter than the ****ing SUN!” I made an about face and tried with every ounce of willpower I had to keep from screaming and crying from the unbearable pain…it was that hot. Once I labored back to cooler climes and rested my back against a rock, I was treated to Japanese guy after Japanese guy, and sometimes Japanese kid after Japanese kid, walking into the scalding hot section of the pool, screaming like little girls, and running and jumping back to the slightly cooler waters.
After that pool I did the ole’ jump in the freezing cold pool, hit the sauna, jump in the freezing cold pool, hit the hotter sauna, jump in the freezing cold pool go back to the hot water routine. As I sat in the pool reflecting on the greater forces of the universe, and where I would likely get inebriated later that evening, the sun began to set overhead. It reminded me of the flaming good ole’ days of sitting in the hot tub with a cigar, and a glass of Australian Shiraz with the poker crew and watching the sunrise on a Friday night…you know, without all the naked Japanese men around.
The hordes of children at this Onsen struck me as slightly peculiar. Kids under 7 in general are pretty much asexual creatures, actually some fathers bring their little girls into the men’s section of the Onsen. They run around ball towel free, or vagina towel free as the case may be, like little Asian nymphs bounding along the rocks, and generally frolicking hither and thither. It lends the Onsen an almost Willowesque (or insert poorly received fantasy flick here) quality, but the nymphs and faeries were almost the most annoying part of the fantasy, so it wasn’t long before vast reserves of mental energy were spent picturing the pure hearted little bastards falling on the rocks and shutting up.
So after the little bastards had sufficiently ruined the outdoor pool for me, I went to what would become my favorite room at this particular public bathing establishment, The Waterfall Room. The room is rectangular, with a massively high vaulted ceiling, and I had to climb down about 25 steps to get to the floor. Directly across from the stairs, lined along the far wall were about a dozen pipes, sticking out of the wall. I’ll leave the obvious phallic metaphors to you the reader, as I continue with my story. The pipes were probably a good 15 feet (5 meters) above the floor, and pouring a steady stream of water in the direction of the ground, most likely aided by gravity, but I can’t be sure the fundamental laws of the universe have any effect on this country.
So as is the usual trick, I spent a few minutes watching what other people did, so I could fit in, then decided what they were doing was stupid and made it up as I went along. I sat under one of the pipes, where water was falling, and was treated to a shoulder massage. It was one of the most interesting physical sensations I’ve ever felt. I moved my head under the water, and became completely deaf to the outside world, while getting a scalp massage. I tried leaning in a number of different positions to hit different areas of my back, and it felt nice but was slightly awkward, so I had the brilliant idea of laying down under the thing. Naturally I positioned my ball towel in a comfortable position for some cushioning, and then sat under this pipe for about an hour. It was bliss.
Afterwards we went out in search of meat. We ended up at a Yakiniku restaurant. This is a Korean barbecue restaurant, a little do it yourself affair. You sit at a table with a small grill in the middle, sticking a foot or so above the wood. You order a plate of assorted meats, and barbecue to you heart’s content. We ate without any major incidents and then moseyed back to the car, where there was a minor incident. If you recall we managed to park for free, however, we did not look at the hours for the parking lot. Yama was the only car left in the lot, and chains were drawn across the entrance. Luckily the chains weren’t locked, so we just unhinged them, drove over the chain, and sped down the road to the center of town.
The details are starting to blur now, being a few months removed from the event, it’s sort of like trying to remember the last few hours of a binge through the fog of a hangover, and I was hungover two months ago when it happened. El Charro was DDing that night, so I know we found a few bars, and wet our whistles a bit. The drive back to the island from said bar was worth mentioning though. We were listening to a psytrance band called Infected Mushroom’s killer track, “Cities of the Future” driving through Beppu. We noticed for the first time, that during the night, the entire street on both sides in both directions was covered with blue, white, and green lights, that were setting off on a timer down the road like an epileptic airport runway. So as the bass thumping came in under the vocals, “take me down to the cities of the future,” El Charro was burying the speedometer down the empty streets after the traffic lights had ended and the road became one lane. The drive became an intensely trippy experience, barrel-assing
down the lonely miles (kilometers) 90 miles an hour (130 km/hr) with these lights beckoning us back to our remote island.
There are a quick series of turns and narrow roads that gave me the slight feeling of diving into the bat cave on the way in. The island is dark and quiet; the hotel is empty, even devoid of staff at this hour, giving it an almost ethereal quality. As we walked back to our building I heard an oddly repetitious sound, and I stopped to identify it. The three of us stood next to the main building of the hotel, and the only rooms were on the second floor. After a few moments we realized what we were hearing was the syncopated coiling and uncoiling of mattress springs. The island from that moment on had an official love shack.
We stumbled back to our room, finished off last night’s booze, and fell fitfully asleep sometime before dawn, as expected we would wake up well after check out tomorrow.
One of the reasons this Onsen sounded so appealing was due to its “hot sand bath” facilities. So we went to our respective gender based locker rooms and disrobed our civilian garb before re…robing for the sand bath. The sand bath area is co-ed for families and spouses and what not, and despite the fact that all you had to do was cover yourself in sand and relax, we were unsure of what to do once arriving in the room. The sand room was a large concrete rectangular room, with 6 areas about bed width and about 20 feet long, spread down the room. It wasn’t really possible to bury yourself and then poor more sand on top of yourself, so the buddy system would have to be initiated. After standing around awkwardly trying to gauge the best method for sand immersion and relaxation El Angel Solo and I picked a spot and began experimenting.
Unlike the beach, the hotter sand was farther below the surface, so I dug myself a little trench and started piling the sand on while El Angel Solo hit me with the plastic sand scooper that was nearby. It’s difficult to describe the sensation of sitting in a pool of hot sand with someone gently pouring the fine grains on top of the thin layer of fabric separating my skin from the heat. I guess sensual would be a good word. The sand feels like weighted water essentially, it flows over me, leaving only heat in its wake, it ripples, and rains from the scooper, and I quickly enter the relaxed mode of a man with nothing to think about but the euphoria rising from somewhere within me. Then the cackle of my neighbor breaks the spell, “Alright I’m done, do me now.”
It’s hard to return a comment sufficiently thanking her for her small labor, but reminding her that she’s an impatient nuisance who with one comment wrecked everything she had done for the five minutes before. So I just say, “Sit over there and wait a god damned minute, I’m relaxing for the love of crap.”
Getting up in hot sand when you’re a hairy bastard is a bit tricky, suffice to say there was more sand than skin in most places. So I began pouring sand on El Angel Solo, after a few minutes I just poured a ton of sand on her breasts, which she liked at first but eventually told me to stop, I figured this was the quickest way to piss her off so I could wash the sand off all the uncomfortable nooks and crannies where it had accumulated. I stood up, and when I looked over, El Charro had a whole &*^$ing Japanese family pouring sand on him, a little girl, wife, and husband. He said it had nothing to do with him, for some reason they had just volunteered to do it. Lucky bastard. He naturally enjoyed the experience more, and stayed for quite a while.
El Angel Solo and I departed at our respective gender based locker rooms and I quickly disrobed and headed for the shower stools. It only takes one Onsen experience for the routine to click, and you become much more comfortable with the overall environment. In the stool shower room there were at least 6 different indoor pools, as well as outdoor pools, 2 different saunas and my favorite room that we’ll get to later. Though I didn’t do it that day, you can get the closest shave of your life with a simple Bic at the Onsen, the air is so permeated with heat and moisture that you won’t even cut yourself, and it’s a chin like a baby’s ass for 24 hours.
I scooted out to the outdoor pool and moved toward the corner which was empty of patrons, there was a sign at the end of the pool that I couldn’t read, but it apparently read, “do not walk this way magma is being injected into the pool and it’s hotter than the ****ing SUN!” I made an about face and tried with every ounce of willpower I had to keep from screaming and crying from the unbearable pain…it was that hot. Once I labored back to cooler climes and rested my back against a rock, I was treated to Japanese guy after Japanese guy, and sometimes Japanese kid after Japanese kid, walking into the scalding hot section of the pool, screaming like little girls, and running and jumping back to the slightly cooler waters.
After that pool I did the ole’ jump in the freezing cold pool, hit the sauna, jump in the freezing cold pool, hit the hotter sauna, jump in the freezing cold pool go back to the hot water routine. As I sat in the pool reflecting on the greater forces of the universe, and where I would likely get inebriated later that evening, the sun began to set overhead. It reminded me of the flaming good ole’ days of sitting in the hot tub with a cigar, and a glass of Australian Shiraz with the poker crew and watching the sunrise on a Friday night…you know, without all the naked Japanese men around.
The hordes of children at this Onsen struck me as slightly peculiar. Kids under 7 in general are pretty much asexual creatures, actually some fathers bring their little girls into the men’s section of the Onsen. They run around ball towel free, or vagina towel free as the case may be, like little Asian nymphs bounding along the rocks, and generally frolicking hither and thither. It lends the Onsen an almost Willowesque (or insert poorly received fantasy flick here) quality, but the nymphs and faeries were almost the most annoying part of the fantasy, so it wasn’t long before vast reserves of mental energy were spent picturing the pure hearted little bastards falling on the rocks and shutting up.
So after the little bastards had sufficiently ruined the outdoor pool for me, I went to what would become my favorite room at this particular public bathing establishment, The Waterfall Room. The room is rectangular, with a massively high vaulted ceiling, and I had to climb down about 25 steps to get to the floor. Directly across from the stairs, lined along the far wall were about a dozen pipes, sticking out of the wall. I’ll leave the obvious phallic metaphors to you the reader, as I continue with my story. The pipes were probably a good 15 feet (5 meters) above the floor, and pouring a steady stream of water in the direction of the ground, most likely aided by gravity, but I can’t be sure the fundamental laws of the universe have any effect on this country.
So as is the usual trick, I spent a few minutes watching what other people did, so I could fit in, then decided what they were doing was stupid and made it up as I went along. I sat under one of the pipes, where water was falling, and was treated to a shoulder massage. It was one of the most interesting physical sensations I’ve ever felt. I moved my head under the water, and became completely deaf to the outside world, while getting a scalp massage. I tried leaning in a number of different positions to hit different areas of my back, and it felt nice but was slightly awkward, so I had the brilliant idea of laying down under the thing. Naturally I positioned my ball towel in a comfortable position for some cushioning, and then sat under this pipe for about an hour. It was bliss.
Afterwards we went out in search of meat. We ended up at a Yakiniku restaurant. This is a Korean barbecue restaurant, a little do it yourself affair. You sit at a table with a small grill in the middle, sticking a foot or so above the wood. You order a plate of assorted meats, and barbecue to you heart’s content. We ate without any major incidents and then moseyed back to the car, where there was a minor incident. If you recall we managed to park for free, however, we did not look at the hours for the parking lot. Yama was the only car left in the lot, and chains were drawn across the entrance. Luckily the chains weren’t locked, so we just unhinged them, drove over the chain, and sped down the road to the center of town.
The details are starting to blur now, being a few months removed from the event, it’s sort of like trying to remember the last few hours of a binge through the fog of a hangover, and I was hungover two months ago when it happened. El Charro was DDing that night, so I know we found a few bars, and wet our whistles a bit. The drive back to the island from said bar was worth mentioning though. We were listening to a psytrance band called Infected Mushroom’s killer track, “Cities of the Future” driving through Beppu. We noticed for the first time, that during the night, the entire street on both sides in both directions was covered with blue, white, and green lights, that were setting off on a timer down the road like an epileptic airport runway. So as the bass thumping came in under the vocals, “take me down to the cities of the future,” El Charro was burying the speedometer down the empty streets after the traffic lights had ended and the road became one lane. The drive became an intensely trippy experience, barrel-assing
down the lonely miles (kilometers) 90 miles an hour (130 km/hr) with these lights beckoning us back to our remote island.
There are a quick series of turns and narrow roads that gave me the slight feeling of diving into the bat cave on the way in. The island is dark and quiet; the hotel is empty, even devoid of staff at this hour, giving it an almost ethereal quality. As we walked back to our building I heard an oddly repetitious sound, and I stopped to identify it. The three of us stood next to the main building of the hotel, and the only rooms were on the second floor. After a few moments we realized what we were hearing was the syncopated coiling and uncoiling of mattress springs. The island from that moment on had an official love shack.
We stumbled back to our room, finished off last night’s booze, and fell fitfully asleep sometime before dawn, as expected we would wake up well after check out tomorrow.
posted by Just1Wheat at
2:14 AM
