Yufuin
We started the day by walking from our house, past the neighbouring rice fields and into the centre of Yufuin.
Yufuin is a touristy onsen town with lots of food stalls and cute shops. It’s a popular coach trip stop, so can get very crowded. With that in mind, we visited nice and early, just as everything was opening. We had an early lunch made up of a selection of things from different food stands – grilled beef, a couple of type of chicken karaage (fried chicken in a soy, garlic and ginger batter), potato croquet and strawberry ice cream.
In the centre of Yufuin is the ‘floral village’, a collection of shops that are styled to look like an English village
Lake Kinrinko
One of the other main attractions in Yufuin is Lake Kinrinko, which has a nice walking path around it.
The lake has both cold and hot spring water feeding into it, which leads to a layer of mist sometimes forming on parts of it
Aso-Kuju National Park Sagiridai Overlook
After our morning in the town centre, we walked back to the house and got in the car to drive to Beppu. We made a quick stop at a parking spot overlooking the town of Yufuin in one direction, and the volcano Mount Yufu in the other
Beppu Ropeway
Our next stop was Beppu Ropeway, which took us up to almost the top of Mount Tsurumi. The cable car ride had great views over the surrounding mountains
At the top cable car station was the start of a walking trail to the peak. We followed this to the top, where we could see the city of Beppu on the coast and all the surrounding moutains.
Behind us we could see a cloud covered Yufu. This cloud proceeded to come our way and just as we got back to the cable car station, it started snowing!
Next to the bottom cable car station was a little garden that we took a rainy walk around.
Hells of Beppu
We then continued to drive through the mountains into the city of Beppu, famous for it’s high number of onsens.
In addition to the many hot spring hotels, there are 7 ‘hells’, or jigoku. These are touristy hot springs of different types for viewing, not bathing in! We completed a stamp rally by visiting them all.
Yukemuri Observation Deck
Before heading back to Yufuin, we made a stop at an observation point the looked over the city, where you could see all the steam rising up from all the onsen hotels.
Once back in Yufuin, we decided to make use of the house’s kitchen and cook our own dinner. We went to a supermarket and picked up some fancy local beef and various sides to go with it.