afraid of small animals: More Kyushu Camping and the Onsen Circuit

We saw a ton of signs for this animal theme park and it really made me think of my brother!

After Aso, we headed to Kurokawa Onsen, a small hot spring town with a bunch of quaint hotels and gorgeous outdoor baths. We got our three-entry medallions and were ready to enjoy it!

Here's a picture of Okunoyu, probably one of the nicer outdoor baths that I had ever seen. It was right on a river and you can even see a little waterfall off in the distance there. It was so nice! But the only drawback was that the best bath (above) was mixed so we only snuck in for a little bit when there were no men.

After spending the night near Kurokawa we headed for Beppu, where we had this campsite essentially to ourselves. There were some crazy swans on the lake though, and when they got out of the water and started walking around, they were HUGE. Luckily they never came knocking at our tent that night or I would have seriously freaked out.

We were just a few days too early for the Beppu Onsen festival, but I still enjoyed the posters and we still checked out a few more hot springs.

Nice place to warm your toes on a rainy day!

We went around Beppu that day, checking out some steaming pools of different colored water, or the hells.

That night, we decided to pick up the tent and head for the big city so that we didn't have to bear another night in the freezing cold, wet tent. We were all the happiest we had been during the whole trip, that's for sure!