Shiraike Jigoku, the “White Pond Hell,” gets its name because, unlike the Blood Pond Hell, its hot water is white, but it’s actually better known for its aquarium. Piranhas and so on: they use the heat from the hot spring to raise tropical fish.
Piranhas
I still don’t really get what any of this has to do with hot springs, but there were quite a few unusual fish, so it was fun in its own way.
This is the pond itself…
Nothing much to it. If they’d tried to make money off this pond alone, they’d have gone bust long ago…
Having seen all the hells down below, we now head up the hill.
A chimney along the way
If you’re coming with the family, Beppu probably isn’t bad, since there aren’t really any decent amusement parks around here, but if I lived in Tokyo I wouldn’t fly all the way out just to see this. It has declined, yet it still hangs on to traces of its former glory, which looks a little lonely. Anyway, why is it that the sun is blazing on the very day I have to go home? Sigh. If only yesterday had been like this…
The elephant at Yama Jigoku, the “Mountain Hell”
It’s a zoo that just happens to be called a hell. This elephant was fun to watch, turning on the charm one moment and making a spectacle of itself the next.
The Mountain Hell itself, on the other hand, was nothing much…
Now on to Umi Jigoku, the Sea Hell.
Ah… what a gloriously clear day. Sigh.
The Sea Hell is a botanical garden.
They’ve planted tropical plants…
This is a tropical water lily
It smelled wonderful…
There’s also a pond like this, where they grow tropical water lilies outdoors too.
Beppu really is hot. The women were dressed very lightly too…
The Sea Hell’s signpost
They make onsen eggs like this, too.
I didn’t try these, so I can’t really rate them…
And finally, Oniishi Bozu Jigoku
Some kind of grayish-white clay comes bubbling up, blub blub.
It looked just like a Japanese rock garden…
Overall it’s not as if there’s nothing to see, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s behind the times. If you live near Beppu and have kids, it’s worth a visit, but there’s not much reason to come from far away. Besides, Japanese people, who are used to hot-spring culture, might find this sort of thing novel, but for foreigners just going to a hot spring is novel enough. If someone’s coming to Japan for a hot-spring trip, Kurokawa or Yufuin both have their own character, so just pick whichever suits you and you can’t go wrong.
That wraps up my long Golden Week posts, but I still have about ten? more to put up, so I have to keep going and going… sob… Still, I’m glad to have one big one done.