Ibusuki

I have been loving the hostels. I meet such interesting people. An English girl tea honing english on a weekend holiday joined me on my trip to the hot black sand bath and onsen. We took a local tain from Kagoshima and headed further south. There the beach sand is warmed from volcanic hot springs. The sand is strikingly black. You strip down and put on a yaka( full body thin robe) and walk out to the beach. Where ladies dig a small trench you lay down in with a towel around your head. They then proceed to bury you. 

The sand feels like it is pulsing on your body. 15 minutes under there was a long time. It is supposed to be very restorative. Hot hot hot! 

I'm not sure if you can see the steam on the beach. But it was wafting off, wild.

After the beach we went inside for a Japanese shower and onsen ( huge hot tub). Mom would have adored all this pampering. The woman and I had lunch and parted ways, as she went to a plane and I further south on a bus the the southern most point Nagasakibana.