Nine Tourist Traps

Beppu is known for a few things. For example:
The undue enthusiasm of the JR lady who announces the destinations of trains.
“Beppuuuuuuuuuuu! Beppuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
Actually, I thought it was cute, but that’s just me.
Being the onsen capital of Japan, there’s a LOT of onsen here, along with the smell of sulphur all over. The sulphur comes through along with the mineral hot spring water.
And the “Jigoku Meguri” or the “9 Hells”. It a group of hot springs for looking at because they’re so hot. Since it would be boring to cough up yen to see bubbling mud and steam at each one, each of these places have an added attraction to spice things up.
One had a sad looking zoo, another had an aquarium and another had a lot of crocodiles.
Yup, crocodiles.
Still another had a greenhouse, one had an aquarium, and one had nothing at all but a geyser.
Some had some nice gardens and waterfalls with the whole “nature” theme. And then there were some demons and dragons around too. Some of the hells were beautiful too. This is red. Nice shade of blue here. And they all had a place to soak your feet (except the geyser place) and useful advice.
Shockingly, I don’t have a whole lot to say about it all, except it took 6 hours to tour it all. It’s neat to see, but you only have to do it once.
If your friends want to check this out and you’ve already experienced hell, send them along on the tour while you chill at the onsen.