Onsen cooking

First off, sorry for the lack of blogging. We have both been pretty busy doing lots of different things. Hopefully these photos give you a bit of an insight into our lives for the past month or so!

We ended up bell ringing one afternoon! We rocked Edelweiss and Amazing grace.




Em has been cooking up the proverbial storm and this pizza was no exception. Not very Japanese but it was superb none the less.




We have also been trying our hand at some home made sushi.




Our first big road trip was to Beppu, and this photo is the view from our hostel. After a 5 hour drive it was great to arrive and have a relaxing soak in the onsen that was at the hostel.




The next day we headed further west to check out the Kannawa (?) area. This area is famous for hot springs (of bathing and non-bathing description) as well as the plumes of thermal steam spewing out of the earth. For lunch we cooked seafood and vegetables using the steam, was pretty amazing!




This is one of the Jigokus, or 'Hells'. The water is boiling hot and an amazing aqua colour. They cook eggs in the water that you can buy inside the huge souvenir shop.









Looking down over Beppu city. I must admit I didn't realise how big it was.




Myoban hot springs. In the little huts there private 'family' baths that are very popular! Was quite a wait but an interesting experience.




On the way home from Beppu we went via the Aso district. The smoke you can see is from an active volcano, in fact the most active volcano in the whole of Japan!




You can drive up to the very mouth of the crater and look in. It was unlike anything we have ever seen before, completely amazing. There were concrete huts scattered around the place just in case it starts to explode!










We spotted this hill on the way down the mountain.




This is the vege patch at the farm where Emma spent 10 days volunteering.



One of the many dogs that live at the farm. Em had a true WWOOFing experience!