My Birthday and Scavenger Hunt

Yay! I'm 21 finally! We didn't have classes on the morning of my birthday- thank goodness but we had to do a scavenger hunt instead in downtown Beppu. We all met at the campus to get on the bus together and then took it downtown after we split up into groups. The scavenger hunt started at a local onsen (a hot spring that is used as for public bathing) where we got the information on what we had to do. We had to find a restaurant, try some food, go find a really old tree in Beppu, and ask locals some questions along the way. We had to ask people around us directions to each place which was a little hard since they only speak Japanese. My team ended up coming in 3rd and won lime chips that were delicious. On the scavenger hunt we walked down back roads of Beppu and many things that I didn't know Beppu had. There is actually a semi red-light district in Beppu but they call it a pink-light district. We actually walked right through it for the scavenger hunt which was a little weird. Everything is inside though which is different from being in Amsterdam where all the women stand in windows and are in plain sight.

Everything seems concealed here in Japan which I guess is because they focus on privacy and what seems like purity. They also had beautiful art on everything from walls to sewer covers. The covers show where hot springs are located since the town is practically sitting on top of a huge hot spring itself. We walked through a bunch of different places in the town and saw a side of Beppu that many tourists probably do not see which was pretty cool. We stopped in Beppu tower which is a tall building that overlooks all of the town and also has information about all of the hot springs in the area. We took a picture in front of a sign with the famous devil picture on it and the worker at Beppu tower jumped in with us also.

After the scavenger hunt was over, we went and tried some Korean BBQ. There was 11 of us all together so we split up into two tables and had plates of meat brought to us where we just cooked it over an open flame in the middle of the table. It was so delicious and perfectly seasoned. After that, we all went our seperate ways for shopping and touring the town. At the end, most of us seemed to end up in the same place- a small second hand store in downtown Beppu. It is pretty cool, kind of like a Plato's closet but not entirely. The fashion here is so different than America. The men are not nearly as masculine as they are in America and they don't mind wearing purple and I've even seen a lot of them have pink phones. The girls here all wear really cute clothes and it's very rare to see someone not wearing high heels. I realized that I probably should have researched my clothing choices a little better since most of my clothes are very casual.
Or I could just go shopping for new clothes!!!
After shopping we all went back and rested before going out to the beach to party. Some of the World Cup games were on so we watched that at one of the bars that we stopped at. It was a fun night and we went a bunch of different places but ended up staying to watch the sunrise. The sun rises earlier here than in America so we didn't really have to wait as long as I thought we would but it was an absolutely beautiful taxi ride back to campus. All in all, it was a good birthday but I was definitely exhausted the next day. Here are some pictures from the scavenger hunt. One of the side streets we went down, a famous statue at Beppu Station, and Beppu tower- a lookout spot, and a temple/shrine.