In Ibusuki

Ibusuki is as far south as we went. You can't really go much farther unless you hop a plain or boat and go to Okinawa.

In Ibusuki we took sand baths. There is a natural hot spring in the sand that makes the sand quite warm. Hot. So you pay some money, and you lie down on the beach in your special robe, and they cover you up with sand (except for your face) and they leave you there for about 15 minutes. Then they come by and tell you to get up. And you do. You go into the special onsen (again, men and women are separated), and you shower and have a little soak and drink some water, then you put on a different robe and go back to your hotel room. I'm not sure the actual purpose of a sand bath, but I didn't die and it was rather pleasant. And now I can say I have had one. It looks like this, but this image came from a travelpod site.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: First Port in Japan

Here is our hotel room. It is another traditional ryokan.

Nothing better than a little beer after a hot sand bath

a better view from our hotel room window, looking to the left

and looking to the right

The clouds were pretty

We went down to a restaurant that had a room just for us

This lady was our server

We had amazing sashimi

I didn't eat the snail. I just couldn't

This is the traditional style of cooking eggs

Everything was delicious, but boy were we full and sleepy when it was done.