Beppu food and onsen

Do you know what food is famous in Beppu?

団子汁！（Dango jiru - dumpling soup)

We found a recommended restaurant in a magazine called 信濃屋（Shinnouya)　so we headed over there. It's quite near Beppu station, just a bout a 10 minute walk away.

 It is such a cute and quaint place!! The ladies who work there are really cute too.

The dango jiru was soooooooooooo nice!! I'm salivating now just thinking about it. Soft dumpling skin in a flavorful soup with hints of citrus....YUM.

And you can pretend to be dainty and drink tea with dainty tea cups hahaha...or coffee (which my friends said was delicious)

The banana milk zenzai (バナナミルクぜんざい）was also super yum! First time seeing a banana milk zenzai so I ordered it. Slices of banana with I think it was vanilla ice cream and red beans boiled to just the right texture in cold banana milk.

I totally recommend you go to this place.

We saw a Tengu while walking around.

 The guest house we stayed at recommended this Onsen, 竹瓦温泉（Takegawara Onsen)

It's really old and the bath is nothing great to shout about. Really simple but the water's really nice and warm. Very traditional. Separated baths of course. The windows are quite near the street though so if they're open people can actually peek in hahaha..

The sand baths (砂湯） are awesome! Best time is to go early in the morning and get a ticket. They only let a certain number of people in at a time. You go in in your bathrobe,lie down on the coarse black sand and someone will shovel it on you. It may not sound it but it's really relaxing! The steam's supposed to be good for your skin too. You lie there for 10 minutes, then go take a shower, get rid of the sand and can go in the bath too The shower/bath area's near the sand bath area so be careful people can actually accidently (or not accidently) peek into the bath area from the sand bath area! haha..

We had an awesome dinner in Beppu at an izakaya called 生一本！The food was sooo good, the Master was very nice and friendly, and best of all, it was very very reasonable!! We ate loads and had alcoholic drinks too but the price was probably 1/3 of what it would have been in Tokyo.

Yummy fresh hamachi:

Toriten (とりてん）which is a local specialty and it's yummy but I don't get what's so special about it. it's basically chicken tempura which is deep fried chicken..

琉球（りゅうきゅう - ryukyu) was very very nice and fresh! It's raw fish dipped in soy sauce, spring onions, wasabi..

関さば(seki saba) - according to this site, caught "where the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Inland Sea converge" and is supposed to be of premium quality. Apparently it's really expensive in other parts of Japan but because Beppu is nearby, the price is reasonable :)

ホルモン鉄板 - I have to admit hormon is a weakness of mine. Fats....too yummy! and I love the texture..drool...

This izakaya's specialty is their chicken wing and it was nice, you can really taste the chicken! I know it sounds weird but if you try it you'll know what I mean.

Young onion tempura! Very sweet and crunchy and delivious :) Didn't expect to like it but I did. Thanks Chico~

Damn. Now I'm missing all the drinks and sours in Japan. 飲みたい！（nomitai! - I want to drink!)