Kyushu Trip

.

The friendship has been restored between Alex and me after a long chat and realizing how little fun it is without one another... so I decided to join the trip we had planned for this weekend.

On Sunday morning at 08.45 we left Nagasaki to go for a tour through Kyushu, the island we're on that is. Together with Rudy, Alexandra, Miho (also the driver), Diana and Izumi we first went to Hita 日田, a town in the east of Oita prefecture where a lot of authentic houses still aboundand and where , in order to conserve the traditional and original feel of the place, even the electicity cables and phone lines, normally hung on poles above ground, have been installed underground.

For liquid lunch we went to the Sapporo brewery, close to Hita, where we enjoyed a tour through the "beer forest Sapporo". The highlight being able to drink as many beers in 20 minutes as you can and yes I'm ashamed to say we did down about 4 pints in those 20 minutes. Diana felt just a little sick but apart from that all went well. Driver didn't drink..good thing too.
Bought a great yesteryear poster to commemorate this event.

Afterwards we left for Yufuin 湯布院 , a small town famous for the hotsprings and its folk crafts like glass, pottery and Japanese paper called 'Washi' and we weren't the only ones who knew about this place; there were busloads of tourists all over the place. Rickshas were everywhere too with very nice guys towing you around the town if you were looking to do that kind of thing. Ricksha or rickshaw is derived from the original Japanese word (jin) rikisha 人力車 , meaning a car with manpower.
Snacked on every corner on kara-age (fried chicken), Taco's, yes taco's and cakes and so on and so forth.
On our way to Beppu 別府 , a very well known 'onsen town' we passed through high mountain ranges with lava flows...quite a sight. The idea was to have dinner and a good old soak in Beppu. We stayed in a fab hotel with a room that accomodates guests both in a traditional Japanese as well as in a western style. i.e. you have regular beds but on top of that you also have a part of the room that is covered with tatami mats where futons can be placed. Yukatas and kimono style coats were provided too.
The most famous onsen is called the Hyotan onsen and the specialty is to take a sandbath, meaning you dig a hole in the hot earth, lie in it and then cover yourself up again with the hot sand. Well could only take this for about 20 minutes ........ blisters were coming up all over the place or so it felt anyway. Had a good scrub and then just soaking away in the open air hot tub, the rotenfuro 露天風呂.
Beppu is especially known for its boiling lakes with mud and water, also know as the 'hells' , jigoku 地獄 ,with temperatures as high as 98 degrees with various colours depending on the main minerals inside. Tight schedule so no time to visit these...maybe next time.
After a good nights rest we continued onto Mount Aso. Mt. Aso sits in the center of Japan's southern island of Kyushu and is the largest caldera on earth, about 25 by 18 km! People always think of Mount Fuji as being the volcano but this range of volcanos is quite a sight too ...... only not today. It's pouring down and so terribly foggy that you can't see a thing.

Continued on to a theme park called Farmland, where dairy produce and all kinds of other things are on display. Spend a lot of time here buying cheese, sausage and eating Kumamoto ramen, a special ramen dish. (Ramen is the noodle that is eaten in soups).

After a long drive finally back in Nagasaki and slept extremely well.

What a great trip this has been...!!