Beppu (part 2)

Continuing with the Beppu pictures...

The conference banquet was held at this nice hotel.  It was quite a nice banquet with live music and lots of tasty food and drinks.  The staff prepare the food:

 Live music:

 Food:

 My pickings - first off some tasty sashimi, and clams:

 Next, some meats and fish:

 Shochu and beer:

 More drinks:

 My final selection:

 The banquet room:

 I was a bit late for the dessert so not much was left:

 Special shochu:

 The hotel had an amazing courtyard:

Some nice views from walking around Beppu: 

 Those places where you see the steam rising are exits for onsen:

The last day it started to snow a little.  But I braved the weather to walk around:

 This looked very funny to me but later somebody explained to me that each column is a name of a university and this high school here is basically boasting that its students can go to all these schools.  The kanji is spaced so that the bottom row are all 学 i.e. school and right before it is 大 meaning large... well 大学 means university (big school?).

 Found a catholic convent:

 A very nice totally Japanese style home:

 Steam devils!

 Another nice home:

 A small spring - in the distance you see the ocean:

 The other side:

 Very easy to walk with nice paths:

 Ocean!

 Kappas live here - children, don't play near the water, kappas will get you!

 A school field surrounded by nice trees:

 A very large Japanese style building:

 A fire station:

 Impressive wall:

 Adaptation to environment:

 Cemetery:

 More rose bushes:

 Palm tree:

Tiny Panasonic store:

 Found a Buddhist temple:

 Tiny streets:

 In the convention center were some bamboo sculptures:

Once the conference was over, we still had a few hours until we would go to the airport so we went to walk around up the nearby mountain.
An old school (not very Japanese looking building):

 Nice row of trees:

 Devils up close:

 A little bit up the mountain was a tomb of a samurai:

 With a nice view on the city:

 You can see the convention tower on the right:

 Lots of steam from onsen:

 Bamboo:

 Would be nice to live in those buildings with the ocean view up on the mountain:

 Nice setting in front of a building:

 A tall bridge:

 Over this:

 Interesting Japanese style apartment building:

 A dressed statue:

 As we climbed higher along the mountain road, the views have gotten more beautiful:

 Can see those apartment buildings from previous picture on the left:

 Wild bamboo:

 We found an onsen source - the water was very hot and the smell of sulfur was in the air:

 Can see a castle in the background:

 Turned out to be the castle hotel which I guess is out of business since it looked abandoned:

 We finally started to get back down - another onsen source:

 Very nice building - onsen? hotel?

And then we rushed to get to the bus to take us to the airport.  The flight back was pretty nice and short.  The Nagoya airport welcomed us with cats:

 As a souvenir, I got myself an Oita onsen cup:

I also have a story with another Japanese old lady that gave me a gift:

Basically, in the Beppu train station, there was a small stall where this old lady was selling mochi (quite likely made by her).  So I went there and she told me to try some samplers.  I liked them all, so I chose one package with a few.  And when she was packing them into a bag, she put in one of a different kind inside as a gift.  I thanked her nicely.  日本のお婆さんは親切な人です。