KKR Hotel Kumamoto

... was pretty incredible, even crowded as it was. We then crossed a huge bridge to an island where you can view the rest of the bay and all the other islands in it.
We stumbled back to the hotel, dead tired and ready to be home. So very very very very ready. Now we are killing time in the hotel lobby waiting for our flight. Impatiently.

... razon, al crater se le llama el "bol de arroz". Esta totalmente cubierto de cesped y tiene una altura de 954 metros.
El autobus nos dejo en una explanada llena de tiendas de souvenirs, desde donde se podia coger un funicular, pagando 400 yens, hasta la cima de Nakadake. Mi guia decia que se podia subir andando, en unos 20 minutos, asi que optamos por esa opcion, para estirar las piernas y con un poco se suerte fortalecerlas.
En la subida las vistas eran ...

12 Julio 2009 - Llegada a la zona de Aso
La idea para hoy era ir a la zona montanosa de Aso a ver la caldera y varios volcanes, pero la combinacion de trenes no era muy buena. Cuando llegamos eran las 4 de la tarde y ya no habia autobuses siquiera para subir al hostal que estaba a 1.4 km.
El hostal me recordo al de Nikko. Estaba en medio de un pueblo perdido, rodeado de arboles y bastante tranquilo. Las duenas son dos mujeres, una de unos ochenta ...

... dingen die we hier willen zien (we zijn hier mede voor een uitstapje naar mount Aso morgen, maar het kasteel en een Japanse tuin stonden op de planning voor vandaag). Vanmiddag hebben we dus (ondanks het weer) Kumamoto kasteel bezocht. Erg mooi. Daarna hebben we de Suizenji Jojuen Garden bezocht. Deze tuin werd aangelegd door Tadatoshi Hosokawa. Hij koos deze locatie vanwege het heldere water dat zeer ...

... quickly and made "like a fish" back to the main path. Unfortunately the town is that small that there is only 1 restaurant which remained closed all day. That night - despite staying in a relatively expensive Ryokan, recently refurbished with all mod cons - we ended up eating pot noodles from the garage down the road - talk about reining the budget in!! Great place to spend a couple of days though having the ability to cook would have helped.

... What an amazing TV service - live dubbing in English! There was a story about some girl firefighters, sports news and the weather. Apparently the amazing warm weather (20 degrees at least again yesterday) is unusual and the winter temperatures are due to return today - no so far, it is still bright, sunny and warm. My 30 mins Internet time has run out so better find something else to do in the Tourist Information Centre... xx

I only had one day and night in Kumamoto so I was up and out to get an early train from Nagasaki. I arrived about lunchtime - after a bit of dithering to find my guest house Master, we got back to his house around 1pm. The Master was very kind picking me up from the station, he also offered to take me back in the morning. In fact he was really pleased to ferry me about town; as I wanted to visit the castle and he wanted to get back into town to do some shopping ...

... any english--so we guess based on the map, characters, or numbres if we're lucky...also, there are no menus in english and often there are no pictures...tonight for instance, we just had to talk to the waitress and tell her that we wanted something with noodles, no seafood, and not too hot...we were lucky that she did have at least that vocabulary...but many people don't!!! It was a beautiful day today--approximately 28 degrees (we both burnt a bit...oops!) gorgeous day to ...

... city has a monument marking the hypocenter of the ww2 bomb and a museum nearby. Multiple schoolgroups were present at each place, and I wonder about what these young Japanese think when they visit. They seem like kids on any field trip, a little fidgety bored, a little interested. As a lover & student of history, I do not feel guilt when I visit these places. I believe we cannot judge the past according to subsequent knowledge - living the bloody horrors ...

... may come across as absolutely bat-**** insane, there is some order to their chaos. It is simply a matter of getting used to the sheer volume of traffic, be it motorcycles, cars, busses, bicyles, or pedestrians. Unfortunately on top of their high volume of traffic during peak hours, their intersections are MASSIVE. All of this comes together to form one hell of a nightmare that has definitely taken some time for me to get used. (and still ...