Friday August 31, 1990
Would you believe me if I told you I was glad to be back in Beppu-shi? I'm surprised, too. But, after six weeks of staying with friends in Austin, I missed my own place and my own routines: waking with the 7 o'clock song and getting ready for bed after the 9 o'clock song; boiling water to make drip coffee in the little, black pot; toasting joku pan in the toaster oven and eating it with butter and honey; double-checking the train schedule and hurrying to make the next train, and then waiting for five minutes on the platform because we're always early; buying a lunch of okonomiyaki and Afternoon Tea in the basement of Tokiwa; going through every little shop in the Ginza on the way to Obi Wan's to see if he has any good junk; walking up to Daichi Soft City to get videos for the week.
I missed the damp, straw scent of the tatami on a muggy day, and the way the futons smell of sunshine after we hang them out on the balcony on a windy day. I missed our Japanese bath, and the apartment onsen, and the sulfurous smell of Beppu's hot springs.
I haven't been to the sushi lady's, yet, nor bought any manju, nor been tempted by the cake shops. But I did get up with the sun yesterday and ride the bicycle downtown and back. It's great to be in Beppu before anyone else is up. Downtown's almost completely deserted, peopled only by ghostly old men in white tank tops doing their morning exercises on the sea wall, and an employee of the telephone company who rode around on a moped from telephone booth to telephone booth to clean the glass.
I rode again this evening, but the streets and sidewalks were congested with rush hour traffic.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
August 31, 1990
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Photo: Downtown Beppu-shi. 1990
