Sometimes it feels good to smell bad....

Today Jenny and I went up to Unzen, the little town situated under Mount Unzen. The town is famous for its sulphur hot springs and is basically a quaint resort place. It’s actually really cool (I wish I had taken more pictures)! It smells kinda like flatulence though because of the sulphur, which vents from the rocks as a white gas and makes it look a bit like the town is on fire. Apparently the baths are really good for your skin, which I guess makes up for the fact that you leave the place smelling as if you had rolled around in rotten eggs and spent half the night eating fried beans. It’s not a good place to go if you a have a date later on that night.

We decided to go to a nice little spa house that had both indoor and outdoor baths and a sauna as well as massage therapists. We got a half hour massage and had unlimited use of the baths for only 3000 yen ($30)! Again, soooo cheap to do stuff like that here and I love it! In the outdoor bath I met three Japanese women who of course didn’t really speak much English so I did my best with my limited Japanese and somehow they managed to tell me about the healing properties of the water. At least that’s what I understood from the conversation. I can now say lots of basic things in Japanese, and it helps. It gets frustrating though when I reach the end of my knowledge and have to shrug apologetically. I just haven’t had that much time to study though, with all the other stuff I have been doing. I know I will have to make time for it soon though if I wanna get anywhere.

The massage was great – the guy covered pretty much every part of my body (minus the naughty bits) and he was doing such a thorough job that for parts of it I actually grunted with pain even though I was trying not to. It was definitely a deep tissue massage, but it left me feeling psychologically and physically more rejuvenated than any other massage I have ever had.

While I waited for Jenny to finish, I strolled around and found a glass museum with some great pieces. I also found a glass blowing workshop where you can get a lesson for $20. Hmmm, well I know what I’m doing next. Handmade Christmas presents for everyone….mangled glass sculptures courtesy of me.