For all of us there may be that one unparalleled place that embodies happiness, desire, beauty. A place forever memorable. A place that clings long after you've left and which intrudes at unexpected moments, when driving your car, say, or washing a cup in the kitchen sink. So many associations attach themselves to this place that you feel you have never truly left. And that if you were to walk down a familiar street tomorrow, the flower vendor or vegetable shop lady would flash the old smile and inquire, as they always did, about your health or your cats. For me, this place is Beppu.
Beppu is a city of perhaps 100,000, 20 minutes away by train from the provincial capital of Oita. It lies on the Inland Sea, on the northeast coast of Kyushu, the most southern of Japan's main islands. What an improbable name, Beppu. In English it sounds like a clown's name, a silly impossible name. But as the Japanese say it, the last syllable barely there, it is Bepp(u). It is a little kiss of a name.
Situated on a bay of the same name, it is snugly lodged between two peninsulas, Kunisaki to the northeast, and Saganoseki lying southeast. Guarding it a short distance to the south is Takasaki-yama, the mountain of roaming monkeys who descend at mealtimes to demand sections of oranges and peanuts from the tourists. Rising behind the tiled roofs of the town is Mt. Tsurumi, white-capped in winter and velvety green throughout summer, a mountain gentle as a summer's ocean swell.
At night the string of lights around the bay becomes a glittering necklace against the black of the obscured hills faintly lit with dimmer lights. By day, the southern rays reflecting on the unruffled surface of the water radiate through the clean air and light the surrounding landscape with a shimmering clarity.
The location of this small city would be enough to make it a pleasant place to spend time but its true magic originates meters down in the turgid earth where subterranean steams come to a boil and erupt from 3000 sources. Spouts of steam dot the slopes leading down to the bay. Just below the crown of Mt. Tsurumi the sight of mists rising from innumerable hot spring inns with their quaint tiled roofs and simple wooden walls transports one to another time where Samurai might go clacking down the narrow streets on raised wooden sandals, swords ready at their sides. It is easy to imagine as even today the Japanese tourists and citizens drawn here to take the waters trot out in simple cotton yukata robes and the streets are full of people who, here, would seem out of place in western dress. There are short, swaggering bandy-legged men with round bellies, glossy haired beauties and wiry little ladies with weathered faces like dried fruit, their backs bent to the slopes, all looking like figures from a Hiroshige print.
While the city below has its more modern aspect, up in the hills where the hot springs are, the streets are still cobbled and many of them too narrow for a car to pass. Small altars stand witness along the side of the road, Shinto shrines with their fox deities, or Buddhist altars with their small stone Jizo Buddhas oddly bibbed like babies. They serenely accept the prayers wafting up from the sticks of incense before them. They seem unconcerned that they sit amidst odd arrays of desiccated fruit and dried flowers in Coke bottles or other incongruous containers.
The hot springs where one bathes are called onsens. Some onsen establishments are small, with only one or two steaming pools for soaking. Others are more elaborate with separate indoor baths for men and women, a large outdoor pond, or rotenburo, for mixed bathing, artificial waterfalls to pound the aches from sore muscles, a submerged pebble path to pummel the soles of the feet and often a sand bath or steam sauna. This latter amenity is usually lodged in a small, dark thatched hut oozing hot drops that plop in the gloom. It is a haven for the tired bodies of salary men and grannies, students and extravagantly tatooed Yukaza. And for the occasional foreigner who can overcome the seemingly contradictory abandon of the usually restrained Japanese who, once in a public bath or onsen, have no qualms whatsoever about stripping in front of perfect strangers.
It was here that I came to live in the spring of 1988, just before the cherry blossoms bloomed. I arrived to brilliant sunshine on the last day of March. The sun glinted on the sea like a newly minted coin as the plane descended to the airport of Oita, nestled on the coast of the Kunisaki Peninsula just beyond the rice paddies and hi-tech firms. An hour earlier it had been snowing in Tokyo as I sat in the back seat of a pristine taxi and watched the concrete blocks and grids of the city advance and recede through the flurry of white. Now I felt engulfed by a green I had never seen before, rising up all around me in a welcoming embrace. Perhaps it was that moment that I began to love Japan.
Posted by Jeanne Belisle Lombardo
September 07, 2002
Comments
My wife and I rode around Kyushu by bicycle but we never got to Oita-ken, unfortunately (or Kagoshima for that matter). Three weeks we rode and we still didn't have enough time to see everything. This was in 1992, I think.
We camped in temple grounds, in parks, by the side of the road. People would see our tent and offer us something to drink, wandering over for a chat. Three weeks on the road and I don't think there was a single day that we didn't take at least one bath in an onsen somewhere. The art of bathing is one of the great pinnacles of Japanese culture, and Beppu is... well, Beppu.
I'll get there one day, and a long, hot bath will be the first thing I do to slough off the tiredness of the journey.
Comment by: jh. Posted September 9, 2002 11:07 AM.
I was stationed at Camp Chickamauga after the korean war with the 187 ARCT and was wondering if the camp was still there.I have been told it has been long gone and is now a parking lot.
I have been thinking about making a return trip to Beppu. Do you think it would still be a nice place to visit?
Comment by: Ron. Posted November 15, 2003 07:40 AM.
I'd love to go again myself, so yes I'd recommend it. You won't recognize it, though. Even when I returned for a short visit it 1996, it was so changed from when we lived there in 1989-1991. In 2000, the Asia Pacific University opened in Beppu and almost half of its students are from foreign countries.
I just did a search of Camp Chickamauga, which I'd never heard of before, and found some great photos from July 1955 at this site by Joseph Norman Grenier. He was with the 508th ARCT
Comment by: M Sinclair Stevens. Posted November 15, 2003 07:57 AM.
My father was stationed at Camp Chicamauga in 1956. I have a photograph of myself and my father standing before the Great Buddha that was apparently in Beppu. I have several pictures of this Buddha. No where can I find any reference to a Great Buddha in Beppu. Although similar, it does not look like the Great Buddha in Kyushu. Does anyone know if it's the same Buddha...or am I living in a parallel universe? Thanks for your help. Candy
Comment by: Candy Johansen. Posted July 18, 2004 08:28 PM.
I think that grea Buddha is called dibudsu,I'm not sure if that is the correct spelling.
Comment by: jim davis . Posted October 26, 2004 03:10 PM.
Candy: I came to this site looking for the great Buddha, and found dildos. I distinctly remember him. Maybe a bust and about 50 or 70 ft tall. I think I recall a steel pipe railing around him at a certain height. He was not all that far from the harbor, or at least where ships boats came in. I have a feeling he was of cast concrete and not carved but am not sure. Do you suppose they used explosives and/or jack hammers on him as being not authentic/picturesque enough? I was there,Spring of 1953 USS Talladega. The fragrance of cherry blossoms and the odor of compost.He was not your imagination. You have me curious.--GR
Comment by: George R. Posted November 2, 2004 12:15 AM.
I was stationed in Camp Chickamauga in Beppu in 1955 with the 187ARCT and we were known as the Rakasans. the spelling may be wrong. There was a great buddha of beppu which I have pictures of and a bar was called the dz bar. there was a hock shop called charlies. We jumped with T7 chutes from C46 & C47"s. That was the good old days.
Comment by: Jim Frender. Posted January 29, 2005 09:45 PM.
Jim Frender or Rakkasan (correct spelling): There must be a school near the main gate across the road from Camp Chickamauga, if you remember. I was a Japanese student attending that school from 1950 to 1953. Maekawa, Tokyo
Comment by: H. Maekawa. Posted March 3, 2005 04:56 AM.
Your site brings back many good memories ofd Beppu, Japan. I was stationed there from November 1951 until going to Koje-Do Island to quell the prision riots. Had many good memories of rick-shaw races down the hill from the main gate to the DZ Bar. We would put the rick shaw driver in the seat and we would race down to the bar for drinks. Anyone remember Miss Beppu and her rick shaw. I well remember the giant Budda. Would love to go back to Beppu. Was in Japan for the 1998 Olympics with the Polish Bobsled team.
Comment by: Louis Pugh. Posted June 16, 2005 04:56 PM.
I was at Camp Chickamauga in 1955 and 56. I was TDY there with a radio team. We were in the 9th Corps and had a radio net thru out Japan. Our home base was Camp Fowler in Sendai northern Honshu. I still remember it like it was yesterday. Sure would be nice to hear from anyone that was there at the same time. I reenlisted in the army and took a 30 day leave to the states. While on leave my orders were changed and I ended up at Fort Campbell Ky. I had left behind many friends,army buddies and Japanese friends. Especially Linda. * Great to hear from you, Bob. If anyone replies I'll pass their comments on to you via email. -- mss
Comment by: Bob Gunerius. Posted November 6, 2006 08:16 PM.
My husband was in Korea & Japan from 52 or 3 to 55. I just found a lighter marked Camp Chickamauga 1953. He was in the 187th Airborne. Wondering if any of you knew him - Charles Brown. He loved Japan, and I remember him talking about Beppu and Kyushu in particular.
Comment by: Liz. Posted November 8, 2006 07:38 AM.
MADE THE BIG HOP BACK TO BEPPU,IT WAS LATE 53 AS I REMEMBER. I WAS WITH FOX CO.ANYBODY OUT THERE THAT MADE THE HOP WITH ME, I WOULD LIKE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH AND TALK OVER OLD TIMES, BEFORE THEY RUN OUT. LEFT THE 187TH AROUND XMAS TO GO BACK TO KOREA SO THAT I COULD JOIN THE 27TH WOLFHOUNDS AND GO BACK TO HAWAII WITH THEM.AS MUCH AS I ENJOYED BEPPU I REALLY ENJOYED HAWAII, SPENT A YR.THERE BEFORE I FINALLY WENT BACK HOME TO BFLO.N.Y. IF YOU RENEMBER ME AND WANT TO GET IN TOUCH PLEASE DO AS I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO ANY OF YOU.
Comment by: JIM HAMM. Posted December 2, 2006 02:06 AM.
To: Bob Gunerius ... posted nov 6, 2006 I was looking at some pictures from my dad. He was in the army. He and his wife and daughter were stationed in Camp Fowler in 1955. I have a picture of a "farewell party" for Lt. Hershey. Lots of people in the picture. My dads name was Jack Cully and his wifes name was Ingeborg, or "Mickey". She was from Germany. I was wondering if you knew them. thanks lori
Comment by: lori. Posted February 13, 2007 03:33 PM.
I lived in Beppu from 1949 until 1952 (when I was 10 yrs old) with my parents Capt Arthur A. Rogowski and my mother Marie Rogowski. My father was the commander of the Counterintellicence Corp (CIC) Unit in Beppu during that period. I remember (often aided by old family photos) the hot springs, the large Buddha and Camp Chickamauga. While we lived off post in a large three story house, we were part of the Camp Chickamauga commuity when elements of the 24th Infantry Division was there. As a child I sat at the gate of our house and watched the 24th Division element deploy to Korea in the early days of the Korean War, and later watched elements of the 3rd Infantry Division arrive in Beppu and move into Camp Chickamauga before they too deployed to Korea. After viewing the Beppu web site, it is clear that there is little there that I would recognize if I were to return. I will have to be content with the family photographs.
Comment by: Kenneth Rogowski. Posted May 26, 2007 01:52 PM.
I WAS ACAMP CHICKAMAUGA,BEPPU WITH FOX COMPANY OF 187TH AIRBORNE LIKE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH JIM HAMM WHO WAS IN FOX COMPANY AND SIGNED IN ON THIS SITE HE WAS THERE IN 1953 ,MY PHONE 912-496-4424 WEB SITE WWW.AIRBORNE187H.HOMESTEAD.COM THANKS WALTER"PETE"PETERSON 300 N.6TH ST FOLKSTON,GA.31537
Comment by: pete peterson. Posted June 13, 2007 01:46 PM.
Share Your Thoughts
What an improbable name, Beppu. In English it sounds like a clown's name, a silly impossible name. But as the Japanese say it, the last syllable barely there, it is Bepp(u). It is a little kiss of a name.