We had a “special” breakfast this morning as the hotel prepared a Western style breakfast for us. The taxi we asked for arrived 10 minutes early and as hotel staff waved us off we were on our way to Aso station where we had reservations on the Limited Express train to Beppu.
When we arrived in our hotel the staff seemed surprised to see us and took a good look at the confirmation mail we had with us. There clearly was a problem but no one told us what it was and they let us fill in the check-in form and stored our luggage. Soon we were on our way to Takasakiyama natural zoo where a colony of more than 1200 Japanese monkeys roams freely.