London Heathrow, Frankfurt, and Vienna have airport supermarkets. Singapore Changi, a butterfly garden, swimming pool and jacuzzi, and yes, they, too have a supermarket. But Oita Airport in Japan? Try a foot bath.
Oita Airport is the sole commercial airport in Oita prefecture, whose primary destinations include the eponymous capital, and a pair of hot springs cities, Yufu & Beppu.
At first glance, Beppu, a small rugged city overlooking Beppu Bay, is standard fare for a Japanese city, It has a warren of svelte roads, garish signs for barbecue restaurants, and a red-light district.
But head for the hilly neighborhoods, and you will encounter naturally-occurring steam emanating from beneath the roads:
In any other country, that’s where the story would the end. But this is Japan.
Whereas dipping into an onsen is meant to be relaxing, the process takes a bit of time. Instead, let’s make things easier, and stick with foot baths, called ashiyu (足湯/あしゆ) in Japanese.
And let’s shove one ashiyu right into the arrivals hall of Oita Airport:
Seriously, arrivals hall.
The foot bath is free to use, but you can also buy a souvenir towel with the requisite goofy airport mascots on it. On that note, what’s with the outer space theme?
Some of you might be interested to know that Oita Airport was chosen to be the site of the first “spaceport” in Asia. (link in Japanese) In other words, before the prefecture gets a nonstop to NY, London, or Bangkok — have to increase that runway length first — somewhere up there will be introduced to one of those wacky Japanese mascots:
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