Japan Day 16: Beppu
January 16. Instagram I need to preface this day by reminding everyone the only reason I wanted to go to Beppu in the first place was because of one specific ramen shop. No other reason, just Yume Wo Katare. The train today is going to be a little bit of a long ride, mostly because there's no train that cuts right through the water, so it's straight west, then looping back to the south and east. Two trains, 186 miles in only three hours, I love Japan's train system. Beppu is in Oita prefecture, and is the furthest south I've visited so far. It doesn't feel it as the temperature is in the middle 40's, but Beppu is on the same longitude as Northern Africa and Charleston, South Carolina. There is something really hot in Beppu, and it's what they're most well known for: hot springs. Mount Tsurumi erupted in the year 867, and since then, thermal vents and hot springs take up the entire mountainside, sliding all the way down to Beppu Bay. The hotel I...