If you've got some extra time, here are my Kyushu photos from my trip earlier this month. It was a very short but fun trip.

I enjoyed exploring Nagasaki City quite a bit. It is a city with tons of history, even in just the last 500 years though it (and the rest of Japan) are obviously much older. We went to the Peace Park first since it was on the way into town, but also spent a large amount of time wandering around the area in and just outside of Glover Garden. Thomas Glover was a famous expat in the city during the last half of the 1800s upto his death in 1911. He apparently was involved all over the place, helping to build the first train line in Japan, the first modern shipyard, and starting Kirin Beer. The garden was more interesting than we thought and so we lingered even as we melted in the muggy heat. I was also drawn to Oura Catholic Church, which was completed in 1865 to serve the Nagaski foreigner community and survived the war and bomb (and fires).

The second half of the weekend we relaxed our way through Beppu, the Las Vegas of onsens (if Las Vegas was built where Yellowstone is). Beppu is built on top of land that is just chock full of hot springs. Some are now famous for their bubbling springs now named "jigoku" or "hells", the water is too hot or chemically saturated to bathe in.. but they are really interesting to look at. The others have been made into baths for people to enjoy. I actually found Beppu too darn hot to enjoy in summer... but Tom really liked the sand bath, where they bury you up to your neck in sand which has been heated by hot spring heat. I was fine with watching from the sidelines... too much heat for me!

On the whole, the weekend was a complete success and the bonus was being able to hang out with Tom for some quality time. He was gone the entire month of June and is away this week through the end of August again so... this was our chance to just- hang. It was a nice break.