Hells in Japan

Wahhhh I miss Japan :( I've never felt this way about a place before! Usually when I go somewhere and then gotta leave, I'm like, well that was nice...but yay I get to go home and wash all my stinky clothes and eat and sleeps! But this is different. I feel like I belong in Japan and shouldn't be anywhere else! My heart seriously ached when I was at the airport...I wanted to run back to Shinjuku station and just get lost in the crowd forever...

Anywho!!! Here are some pics from Beppu, the boiling hot springs capital of Japan.

Hells are naturally occurring boiling sulfurous (or some other chemical) ponds that are too hot to be used as hot springs. They're all over Beppu...the whole town is literally steaming!

FYI, I'm just doing a screen clip of my pics from now to save on size on because my picasa has like no more space...sorry for shitty quality.

My favorite hell! Cuz it actually looks a lot like hell lol...

The prettiest hell! I love the blue water and how the smoke and gas just kind of hovers over it and morphs into interesting shapes!

Geyser hell, shoots every 30 minutes

Monk's head hell, cuz I guess it's shaped like a bald head?

The whole town was literally steaming. All the city vents had steam coming out of them...it feels sooooo nice so I just stand there for like 15 minutes getting my pores ventilated LOL

No filters or anything...just really really blue hot springs water!

They mix the blue with this one...

...to make a free hot springs foot spa! So nice and relaxing after a whole day of walking around...

More hells...

OK technically this isn't in Beppu, but I thought the acidic lake here near Mt Fuji was really cool too!

BLACK eggs...boiled in the super acidic hot lake!

Kinda scary, huh? The eggs tasted pretty normal

Super yummy cranberry gelato...also made from hell water!

Hiroshima is not too far away from Beppu. I really wanted to come here to learn a bit more about some of Japan's more tragic events. This is the Atomic Bomb Dome. In 1945 during the World War, the atomic bomb was dropped almost directly over this civic building, leading to complete and mass destruction of the whole city. This is the only remaining structure from that time and has been preserved till today.

Hiroshima is now an ultra modern city, just like all of Japan's beautiful cities, but there are still reminders of the past like the memorials in this park

My last meal in Japan: famous Ichiran ramen, reputedly the best in all of Japan. My god, it was phenomenal. I could eat 10 bowls of this and die instantly of coronary disease without hesitation

Japan, how I miss you.

I'll be back one day!!!