It was rough getting sleep in, but I think I managed a few hours. I wanted to see the sunrise at the beach, so we got up and headed down to where we had the bonfire last night. There were the remnants of the fire (mostly soot) while we waited for the sun to rise. A few other campers came down as well to see. It was another surreal experience, only eclipsed by seeing sunrise on top of Mount Fuji. What made it more magical though was the lack of other people viewing the same sight.
When everyone was up, it was time to catch breakfast. There were some canals in the forest that housed crabs. We were armed with disposable chopsticks from yesterday and a few containers. Unfortunately, despite doing karate for a while, I'm no Mr. Miyagai. I wasn't able to catch any of the tiny crabs. However, my girlfriend was able to catch a decently-sized crab that she was able to scoop up! Once we caught enough crabs and walked around a section of the beach that we hadn't explore yet, it was back to the campsite to cook breakfast. The smaller crabs were deep fried while the bigger crabs were used to make crab soup. I never ate small crabs, shell and all before. It was crunchy and delightful. The miso crab soup was also quite tasty, with a strong taste of crab (of course).
After cleaning up breakfast, we headed back to the beach for some activities. We played a variety of games like tossing a Nerf football, frisbee, and beach volleyball around for about an hour. As a group, we had to meet a certain amount of consecutive catches or tosses before moving on to the next sport. To finish off at this beach, we broke down into groups and wrote a message on the beach (Welcome to Oita I believe... I can't recall, to be honest). I've been working on my hiragana, though luckily she was able to ensure we did it correctly.
Once completed, it was time to leave camp and venture onto Beppu for lunch. I was sweaty (probably stinky as well), tired and sore from sleeping on the ground. The experience of camping in Japan though, and with people who knew how to camp, was an experience I never expected to have in my lifetime. I managed to catch some sleep during the nearly one-hour ride to Beppu. Along the way though, we made some pitstops. There was an area where we got to see horseshoe crab! Some of the campers were kind enough to try and explain how they molted and grew bigger each time they did so to us. After walking around the mud plains with the horseshoe crab, we headed off to find a restaurant to eat. We arrived at an AYCE restaurant that served yakiniku and sushi. The selection wasn't extremely vast, but the price was extremely cheap. I believe it was roughly $10 CAD a person? I made sure to eat my full after not eating as much the night before. Once we finished lunch, we took a group photo outside the restaurant before saying goodbye to one another. I probably won't ever see those people ever again, but it was somewhat sad to say goodbye to them.
Our host dropped us off at an onsen before he headed back to Yufuin first. We had the day off today, so we decided to explore Beppu! At the hot spring, we were able to book a private onsen. I never enjoyed an onsen as much as I did that day! The private onsen also had an a/c! After spending nearly an hour bathing, we went back to return the key to the private onsen before heading to their relaxation lounge to sit around for a bit. One particular funny moment was when we were lying down, I kept rubbing my cheeks since I used the lotion they had at the onsen. My skin felt quite smooth, so I motioned to my girlfriend to feel my cheek. She was a bit confused because I kept patting my cheek when I motioned her to feel, so she ended up slapping me. We couldn't stop laughing after that moment. I'm sure that the slap was loud enough that it startled the quiet room of other people relaxing after their bath.
After feeling refreshed, we headed outside the onsen to purchase some eggs that they had been soaking in the extremely hot spring water. It was then time to venture around Beppu. Beppu is known for the seven Hells - hot springs with extremely hot water that is meant to be seen rather than bathe in. We weren't really interested in seeing all seven, so we went to a nearby one: Shiraike Jigoku (White Pond Hell). There weren't a lot of tourists around so we took our time walking around the pond. There also was a small aquarium that was filled with Arowana. After exploring, we headed to eat an early dinner.
There's restaurants around Beppu that used the hot springs to help steam food. We found one restaurant that specialized in this cuisine. We got a variety of different vegetables to eat, along with some steamed buns. Honestly, it tasted like regular steamed vegetables to me, but the experience was nice to try. After dinner, we headed to our hotel for the night to check in. After resting for a while, we headed back out to find Beppu Tower. Beppu Tower wasn't extremely tall, but it was devoid of any tourists when we were there. We got about an hour to ourselves to see the view and to go through their "galaxy walk" corridor, which was a highway with twinkling LED lights. After the tower, we headed to a nearby Lawson to stock up on some snacks for the night before heading back to our hotel.
It was an eventful day that was both tiring and relaxing at the same time. Even to this day, I can't determine whether camping was the highlight of Japan 2023 or not. I guess time will tell!
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