Japan 2023: Day 8 - Aso

Today's agenda: Visit ASO (click for a great music video)

First of all, today is extra special because it's Jeff's birthday!!! Happy birthday! Tanjoubi omedetou! We woke up to a very warm room and not a very good sleep. We are on the 11th floor but sheesh! It's crazy warm! We didn't want to go all American on the AC in our room and waste energy but our sleep and sanity demands it!

Still, we got to "sleep in" a little since our train to Aso wasn't until 9:30. Now this train was special, the Kyushu Odan Tokkyu is a scenic train (like the one we took back from Ibusuki) that goes from Kumamoto to Beppu on the east coast of Kyushu (where we'll be heading tomorrow). It also stops at some major sights, and one of those is Aso!

Breakfast once more consisted of a stop at Family Mart in the station where I got one of those custard dorayaki pancake things Jeff had gotten the other day and I was jealous because it looked so good. It was, so good. I also grabbed a sandwich for the train ride which was just a little over an hour.

Thankfully, unlike the shinkansen lately, this train stuck to its promise of being scenic and didn't go into lots of tunnels. It was nice to see the rice fields being prepared and planted, some farmers smoking the patch they just planted, and lots of very green mountains and hills when we got closer to Aso.

We arrived at Aso around 10:30 a.m. and walked around the station. Apparently, we should have bought a bus pass and gotten on the bus right away to take us up to the caldera, but alas we missed that. The next bus wasn't for another two hours. That's the fun thing about Japanese buses in the country-side: they are rare and few between, even if it's a popular tourist spot, so you have to make sure you definitely have a bus to get there and that you take note of the time the last bus leaves, or you might get stuck! 

The scenic train Aso BOY! and Aso in general have their little mascot Kuro

The lawn robot, Aso-ta has a dog house built around it's charging station! XD

Waitin' at the Aso station

We talked about going to see Aso's shrine, but a gentleman overheard us and told us it was under reconstruction at the moment. Darn! Thought we had avoided that by coming in the spring and not fall! There was a very small temple on the map about 15 minute walk away from the station so we walked to that. At least the weather has been sunny and clear so far! It was starting to get a touch hot but thankfully Jeff had his sunblocking umbrella on him so I used that to try and stay out of the sun. The high temperature was 84 that day! Ugh, I'm so not ready for summer.

 

The temple was small but quiet and quaint and inside a nice, cool copse of trees. We made a small donation, rang the bell, clapped our hands, and didn't have to worry if we did it right or not since there was no one around to judge us. 

On the way back to the station we hit up the local Lawsons for some cooling drinks and a bathroom break. I tried one of those jelly fruit packs and it was decent.

Then we did what seemed to be the theme for our Aso experience: waiting for transportation. We chatted with a Swiss lady who was also waiting for the bus and wasn't sure which one to get on. When it finally arrived we got on and it took us up the mountainside. It was a pretty gradual climb, nothing too windy or steep, but Jeff's vertigo still kicked in. We got off at the Aso Volcano Museum and had the choice to either catch the next bus in 30 minutes, or in an hour and 15 minutes. Well, the museum was certainly small enough that we were able to easily do it in 30 minutes. We even watched the 15 minute movie about the volcano's history! There's not a ton of English and I think it was us and 5 other people in that place which was 3 floors, but not really big. Needless to say, we caught that next bus which took us up to the next bus station before the caldera. 

View of the caldera from the museum's roof

A volcanoman

Ancient volcanoman

Jeff stayed behind while I took the final bus that took visitors up to where you can get a view of the caldera and the gases from the volcano steam out. It obviously had the faint smell of eggs but it wasn't too bad. The bus I went on kept juttering to a stop and wrenching forward, like the driver was just learning how to drive a stick! LOL. Either way I made it. You don't really get a view of Aso or the town, there are mountains blocking you. I mean, you are in a caldera, the dip or bowl shape in the middle of a volcano that sunk in when it erupted the first four times and spewed rock and lava everywhere.

Kumamon was my seat buddy on the way up to the caldera

Hot stuff!

Then we started our trip back down the mountain, going on the same bus chain but in reverse, finally arriving back at the train station with about 1 1/2 hours until our train back to Kumamoto. We hit up Lawsons again, got some of their signature fried chicken, Karaage-kun, in both regular AND tonkotsu ramen flavors (I thought the ramen one was decent, Jeff preferred the regular) and we ate and drank hoping it would relive our growing headaches. I think this was brought on by the heat and our lack of sleep.

Lots of places just looked like a golf course!

Was our Aso experience amazing? No, not really. I feel it was a place I wanted to go see but I didn't put enough planning into it to make it a seamless, fun day. It has the problem of having few and far between transportation if you are relying on public transit and haven't rented a car. It is definitely a place for hikers and bikers. Finding information in English on websites to try and plan was a little difficult. All in all: if you go to Aso, rent a car, have a native Japanese speaker with you, or be a big fan of hiking or biking!

The train ride back was once again lovely but we were relieved to make it back to the hotel where we had Tylenol. I was pretty much starving at that point and it was about 7 p.m. and I was craving sushi. We found a good place at the nearby Sakuramachi mall with kaitenzushi (but after COVID and a chain of vandalism by idiots ruining the conveyor belt sushi experience, they no longer have the plates of sushi going around, you just order plate by plate). So we used the little tablet at our table to order our little plates of sushi and then the color of the plate denotes how much that plate cost, they add it up, put it on a little card which you then take up to the register and pay for it. I tried raw horse sushi. One piece was so chewy I was unable to chew it at all and had to spit it out. The other piece was fine. It tasted fine, slightly sweet, but nothing to write home about (or was it, because I'm writing in this blog about it??). Jeff had some fantastic fried tuna croquettes! We just cycled through the menu and ordered what we were in the mood for. They had more than just sushi on there but we vowed to stop at a conbini for our nightly ritual of getting dessert. 

Mr. Ed

And I needed that dessert because I had been wanting to do laundry again. So while Jeff took a nice relaxing bath in hopes to finally get rid of the rest of his headache, I went to our hotel's coin laundry on the third floor. And waited. And waited. And waited. It was in a tiny tiny room with two small washers and two small dryers. One washer completed but no one came to get their shit out of it. I waited with my bag of laundry outside the room because it was so small I didn't want to crowd out the people who were hopefully going to come and get their laundry. One man decided to not be so kind and just sat right in front of the washer so he could use it, pretty much effectively cutting in front of me. Screw that shit. I searched Maps for the nearest coin laundry and there was one just a 7 minute walk away, so off I went. Unfortunately it was sort of the same situation when I arrived. There were 3 washing machines and 6 dryers and all the washing machines were being used. There was one guy there waiting with his stuff. I said I would wait 10 minutes and, luckily, two more teens came in and grabbed their laundry when it was finished from the washer and I was able to do laundry! Hooray!!! One saw me use my Google translate on the instructions and asked if I understood and I said I "understood a little" which made him laugh. But the laundry got done, I didn't have to fight anyone over the machines, and I was able to get back to the hotel room by 11:30 p.m.

Side note: I have never felt safer than being in Japan. I can walk with my bag of laundry down a street at night, alone, and not feel scared. I'm still alert, I'm not stupid, but Japan really is a very safe place with very little crime and I love it.

Needless to say, it was very late by the time all was folded and done and I was too tired to write this blog. Now, the next morning, I got to "sleep in" until 8, take a shower, and we're going to try the luggage forwarding service, Yamato's takkyubin, with our big backpacks. They'll deliver them to our hotel in Fukuoka and we've packed what we need for the next two days in our small day bags to take with us to Beppu. Hopefully it works! I'll be glad not to have to carry those heavy bags for a stretch!

Here's Jeff, who is hopefully feeling better than he did yesterday:

If you don't wanna hear about my brain working improperly, skip the bracketed/italic section below. 

[I find myself lacking the precise words to describe my experience the last couple days. Clearly, my various brain troubles are impacting me - which is to be expected. I'm feeling disconnected and worried about everything instead of being able to actually enjoy things to their fullest. Again, this is a totally normal side-effect of the way my brain works, but it's still a bit disappointing. A misalignment of expectation vs reality also compounds that issue, causing me to get stuck in emotional loops. I'm unsure what the lesson or takeaway is here, apart from managing your expectations. Things will never go the way that you envision them, because you'll never account for every variable. Maybe one day I'll remember that in the moment.]

Kumamoto has been weird. Much like Cincinnati, they have a street car/tram. And also much like Cincinnati, it is woefully in need of expansion. We're making the best of it, though, even if it does mean that we have to put off trying Royal Host until we get to Fukuoka. 

A town like Aso would do really well in the States, where everyone has a car, but definitely suffers a bit in a country where less than 20% of adults own a car. The attractions were interesting, if a bit dilapidated, but that's understandable considering how little money there's been for things like Volcano Museums since the 90s economic bubble burst. Even at the top of the mountain, at the visitor's center before the short bus ride to the caldera experience, there were several derelict buildings being left to decompose for several years. Unused, yet unable to be torn down. It left a strange feeling. 

I did get to have one of my favorite experiences in Japan - which is where you say something in Japanese, but the person you're speaking to responds with something like "Sorry, no English". My friend. I am Nihongo'ing. Please, listen to my words and not the color of my skin (or the content of my character, for that matter). Eventually, I rephrased it and the shop keeper got it. Still got my order wrong, but at least I was charged correctly. Small victories. 

The volcano had really pretty purple flowers blooming! Reminded us of the heather in Scotland.

And while it sounds like I'm complaining a lot, which I probably am, it's an interesting and enjoyable experience. Just gotta manage those expectations to avoid Paris Syndrome.