Kayo-San; part two-Joh

We had been told that there was a park up the road that we might be able to camp at. We had decided to wait till it was dark and set up our tent. We had gathered our bags from the temple and walked up to the fork in the road. I was sitting down with our bags while Peter when to get us something to drink from one of the many vending machines when this man walking down the street came up and asked me where I was from. We started up a conversation. His name was Joh (pronounced like "yo") and he lived in Kayo-San and worked as a gastrointestinal surgeon doing a 2 year stint at the local hospital (I never did figure out why a town with only 4000 people would need a gastrointestinal surgeon). He ended up inviting us to dinner and took us to this tiny little place in a back street. We would never have found it, or gone in there. No one spoke english. He ordered us a famous Japanese dish, I think it was called oma-rice, made of rice covered in cooked egg. It was really yummy and tons of food to eat. He bought our dinner and then offered to drive us to the camp site. We walked to his house (about 15 minute walk) and got in his car and started to drive...and drive...and drive. Warning for any travelers in Japan, we have discovered that tourist maps are not to scale!!! We finally ask Joh to take us back to the town so that we could see if the hostel had any space for us, as we needed to catch the early train because we were headed for Beppu the next day. He invited us to stay with him instead.
He had a spare room. He gave us drinks and we shared a look at a neurosurgery textbook of his (he is studying neurosurgery). Then he showed us his medical school year book, and then we watched some crazy Japanese ping-pong show!! We woke up in the morning, and he gave us breakfast and more drinks. Then we watched a "learn english" show with him that he watches every morning to improve his english (it was all about Japanese sweets). Then he drove us all the way to the train station (and gave us more drinks for the road).
A definite highlight of our trip, thanks Joh!!!