Friday 20 April 2007

Some more hells - Monk Hell, Devil Hell - Fri 13 Apr

The French folks and I made a selection from pre-made plates and had a quick bite at a microwavey cafe for lunch, with a little boy likely related to the owner ignoring familial instructions not to run around and shout out the customers.

We got a bus toward Beppu's sex museum, it's other main attraction touted by the guide book. It was going to be tight timing for me to see some things and hopefully have another hot spring bath before leaving on a 7.5 hour journey back to Tokyo. As it was right nearby and we already had tickets, we looked in at "Monk Hell", bubbling mud that is said to look like the bald pates of monks. I nicked off quickly, not wanting to run out of time.


I popped in to "Devil Hell", really hell on earth for crocodiles, to see what the horrors of a Japanese zoo looked like. Tiny cramped concrete pens. A young adult woman was saying over and over how frightening they were while repeatedly teasing a half empty bottle across the fencing in front of a motionless, huge, gape-mouthed croc.


I bet it was silently dreaming of her screaming.


The pens with more than one crocodile were so overcrowded.

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