Beppu, Takata & Nakatsu

It’s Autumn again! This time last year, our sensei brought us to Yufuin to see kouyou or Autumn Colors and it was PACKED with locals and tourists. This time, we decided to go elsewhere to see the beautiful Autumn scenery and also to visit the other small towns around Oita-ken. There were virtually no tourists, but there were still plenty of locals out and about. I guess tradition cares not for Corona.

Beppu

If you are looking to soak in an onsen during your next trip, this is the city to go to. From hotels to ryokans to public baths, Beppu has one of the best selections of places to enjoy an onsen experience. This is because Beppu produces the largest amount of hot spring water in Japan (83,000 litres per minute).

For the first leg of our trip around Oita-ken, we stayed at New Hotel Matsumi in Beppu, which has its own indoor onsen (unsurprising…) and outdoor onsen on the roof. It has a great view of the sea and you can also watch the sunrise. But these weren’t the reasons we chose this hotel. They have hotel rooms with private onsen – so you can have the same onsen experience without having to leave your room! Plus, you get the same awesome view of the sea! The interior of the room was rather large as well, all of which resulted in the high price for the accommodation.

Naturally, I had to make full use of this opportunity to soak in the onsen as much as I could to get my money’s worth, so that’s what I did.

Besides soaking in onsens, there are also plenty of activities associated with the natural hot spring water such as cooking food with steam from the springs and of course touring the famous 別府地獄 (Hells of Beppu). We didn’t get to try hot spring-steamed food as those places were packed, but we did visit the prominent Hells on the tour. There are a total of 7 Hells, of which we visited 4. The first was the Cooking Pot Hell.

竈地獄 (Cooking Pot Hell): Demons were said to do their cooking here. The hot spring pools here are of various colors such as brown, red and blue. The guide used an incense stick to create smoke over the pools and then went on to explain the phenomena to visitors. Obviously I didn’t understand any of it because I didn’t study Chemistry in Japanese -_-

海地獄 (Ocean Hell): The turquoise color of the hot spring pool here is what gives it its name. A thick cloud of smoke is constantly emitting from the pool so I couldn’t get a good shot of it. Nevertheless, this is one of the more beautiful Hells because of the surrounding landscape.

血の池地獄 (Blood Hell) & 龍巻地獄 (Tornado Hell): These two were right beside each other so visitors who come here normally visit both. My advice is to check the timing for Tornado Hell first. This is because Tornado Hell is actually a geyser which erupts around every 30mins. If you arrive just as the geyser finishes jetting water, you have to wait like we did. Next door is Blood Hell which, as you can imagine, got its name from its color.

The other three that we didn’t go to were 白池地獄 (White Pond Hell), 鬼石坊主地獄 (roughly translated as Monk Hell) and 鬼山地獄 (Mountain Hell). There is a all-in-one pass you can purchase so if you have time, you should definitely check out all the Hells.

Taketa

Taketa is situated in the middle of Oita-ken and it is surrounded by hills and mountains. Our sensei drove us to a spot which was said to be a great place to view the Autumn Colors. Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to think so too. We arrived at 11.30am to find a long line of cars waiting to enter the parking area. We waited for about an hour before we parked the car and walked a short distance toward the park. The place wasn’t as crowded as Yufuin last year, so we had a pleasant stroll around the pond at the centre of the park. Of the locals that did come, many set up their own picnics and ate as they enjoyed the view of the Autumn Colors.

Next, we visited Taketa Castle. The original buildings were all destroyed and never rebuilt (seems to be a running theme in Oita). The castle grounds however, were still intact and they were located atop a hill which gave us some good views of the surrounding areas. This was definitely a must-see for anyone coming to Taketa.

A word of caution if you are planning to travel to Taketa: Plan your meals in advance, especially on a weekend. You may want to consider packing a picnic or buying some ready-to-eat food from the convenience stores before driving to Taketa. There didn’t seem to be many restaurants and when we found these places, many were not open on a Sunday. Additionally, most restaurants serve lunch until 2pm only. We could not find a place to eat and in the end we bought obento from the supermarket. I was starving by the time we sat down to eat.

Nakatsu

The final stop on our trip was a not-so-small town in Northern Oita called Nakatsu. In 2019, this city became famous for breaking the record for the largest serving of fried chicken during its annual karaage festival. Due to Corona however, there would be no festival this year, but nothing stops fried chicken period. This year, the organisers distributed brochures showing places that served the karaage that would have been at the festival .

So we drove our rental car to Nakatsu and searched for one of the shops that sold Nakatsu karaage. I had initially thought that these places were restaurants, but alas, they were mostly takeout shops. Not a culture that I had associated with Japan – takeout fried chicken. So we did as the locals did – and ate takeout food in the car, parked in front of a conbini . The karaage was delicious; it was nicely fried, still juicy on the inside and the spice mix was spot on.

The historic castle in Nakatsu was still standing, unlike in Oita City and Taketa, so we went to have a look. Up to this point, I had not been inside a Japanese-style castle so it was really interesting to see what the interior looked like. For this one, there were exhibits of the castle’s history and information on each level. At the top, we could walk around a balcony to get a 360-degrees view of Nakatsu and the shrines on the castle grounds.

Before heading back, we made one last stop at Yabakei Dam. It began to rain so we didn’t get the best view of the area, but it meant that there were few other visitors. To be honest, I didn’t know there was a dam at all in our prefecture so it wasn’t a place we planned to visit, but it was interesting to check out. Also, the area surrounding Yabakei is scenic this time of the year so the drive up to and from the dam was beautiful. The dam itself is impressive, but there is nothing else there and parking is very limited so I wouldn’t recommend it if you are looking to see Autumn Colors in Yabakei. There are better spots that are recommended by various websites.

This rounds up the tour of our prefecture currently. So far, we have visited Yufuin, Saiki, Beppu, Taketa and Nakatsu. There are still some sites and towns that we have yet to visit, but we will have to leave them till next time. Oita may not be a very well known prefecture, but it definitely has its hidden gems and I’m quite happy to point the way to some of the best ones.