Karatsu to Ureshino

Thursday we traveled to Ureshino, a spa town a little farther south in Kyushu.  Catching an early train (9 o'clock), we made another train connection before arriving in Takeo Onsen, where we took a bus to Ureshino.

We had a little time to wait at the train station.  There was a coffee shop, so I decided to have a cup.  What an elaborate vacuum apparatus to make a cup of coffee - I wasn't familiar with the process.  They poured water in a round beaker and then ground coffee that sat in another test tube-like thing in the beaker.  It took what seemed like forever to get the coffee and (after paying about $4 for it) I was expecting something out of this world.  The Starbucks Via that I made my first day in Japan was better.  So much for fancy apparatus.

We interrupted our bus trip to stop at Keishuen, a garden in Takeo Onsen.  What a disappointment. The plum trees had just bloomed while everything else had not yet started.  While on that subject, we have seen very few cherry blossoms yet.  It must have been a relatively tough winter in Japan and things are blooming a little bit later than normal.  So we are hoping out luck changes and the weather warms up.

Our ryokan in Ureshino is a modern building that looks pretty hideous from the outside.  Inside, though our room is quite nice, overlooking a peaceful garden.  That seems to be a theme with may ryokan - no matter what it looks like on the outside, inside it is a totally transformed experience of peacefulness and beauty.  

We visited a tea factory outside Ureshino this afternoon.  Besides getting a tour of the facility, we were chatted up immensely by one of the women who worked there in the retail shop.  She had such a warm and wonderful personality.  We have found that at every point of the trip so far.  People have been so gracious and warm in wishing to make sure we are enjoying ourselves.  It certainly erases any image of Japanese people as taciturn and reserved.  They really can't be nicer.

We are off to one of the outdoor hot spring baths this afternoon.  Should be wonderful with cool and pleasant temperatures in the air and the 105+ degree bath.  Turns out that the bath was ok, not great.  The most interesting thing was the beer dispensing machine they had in the little lounge.  You take a regular beer glass, put in in a cradle and press the button.  The glass tips and the machine starts dispensing beer, tipping the glass upright as the glass fills.  It takes it right to the top before getting upright, then showers some foam on the top. It is to bartending what Fast Lane is to toll collecting.  The bartenders' union in the US better hope this wonderful advancement doesn't work its way across the Pacific.  :-)