The final stop on our road trip in Kyushu was Beppu. Instead of your typical little onsen town, this is an onsen city where steam rises up between the high-rise buildings. You definitely can’t miss the smell of sulphur (or rotten eggs) in the air… Beppu is also known for what they call the 7 Hells of Beppu. It’s a display of different onsen types, including their specific traits depending on the minerals in the water. This leads to some very interesting colours, and the high pressure causes the hot water to come out of the earth in all sorts of ways. It was definitely a bit gimmicky and touristy, so we tapped out after Hell number 4, but nevertheless it was interesting to see and learn about the baths we had been taking and will take next.
With temperatures of around 100 degrees, those onsens are for viewing only but being in the onsen city, we of course had to do some bathing as well. We decided to indulge ourselves in the most unique type of onsen bath we could find: the sand bath. It is just like back in the day at the beach, where you would get buried in sand, except this time the sand is pre-heated by the thermal activity of the ground and you’re lined up like sardines with other bathers. We lucked out and happened to get buried during sunset, so lying in a sand pit, buried under a blanket of heavy, hot sand, will probably remain the most unique way to watch a sunset for us for a little while.
Just before giving back the car, we made a pit stop at what is probably the most curious museum we’ve been to: the TOTO Toilet Museum. Some of you might know the company TOTO. They are most known for their Japanese bidet toilets and have become particularly famous for their high-tech WASHLET toilets. If you’ve ever used one of their toilets either in Japan or elsewhere, you will know that it’s quite a different experience from your usual bowl walk. What is the best part in such a museum? Of course, the mandatory toilet visit at the end of the exhibition, where we got to try out the latest model on sale. If we ever have 2,000,000 yen (around 10,000 CHF) to spare, we now know where to spend it.
A fun fact about TOTO is that their ceramics business has recently been benefiting from the AI boom. No, this is not because people spend more time on the toilet looking at AI slop on their phones, but because they make specialised ceramic components used in semiconductor manufacturing. A textbook example of success through diversifying your business.
And with that, our little Kyushu road trip came to an end. We were actually quite happy to hand the car back and get back on Japanese trains, at least for a few days. The difference between the 80 km/h speed limit on the highway and the zooming 300 km/h of the Shinkansen was quite a shock, though. As we zoom off the island and make our way to Honshu, we can say with 100% certainty that the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, which is often overlooked, is definitely worth a visit! The impressive volcanic and grassy landscapes, surrounded by the laid-back rocky coasts and mixed with the empty, misty forests, are a perfect balance for a Japan trip. Maybe the only thing the island is missing is a big megatropolis like Osaka or Tokyo. That’s not where we are going next, though, but rather to our favourite city in the country. That’s a story for the next post though…
- Country
- Japan
- Region
- Beppu
- Date
- 02 October 2026
- Camera
- Sony a6700, Iphone 15 Pro
- GPS
- 33.279378,131.507617
Wow 🥰
🤗 einfach nur wunderschööni Bilder 🤗 meega!!
Your photos are an incredible level of professional. And thanks for making toilets an interesting topic!