Japan

Don't Worry, Be Happy

I'd like to begin this entry by apologising for the long delay since the last entry and appologising in advance for the (probable) erratic timing between future updates. Unfortunatly when I am travelling around between cities I find it harder to get online and I've been doing rather a lot of travelling since the last entry.

In fact I've been on 6 different trains, in three different cities, and up 2 differnt volcanoes. After that last rather worried-sounding entry I managed to use an on-line service to book an extra 2 nights there in Fukuoka. I didn't actually do a great deal with the extra time that gave me there, but it at least let me work out what I was going to do next and make some preparations.

By the time I got back to it, (On the 25th) I was unable to book a room in Nagasaki for that night through the same on-line service for the 26th, but I booked 2 nights in Kumamoto, 2 in Kagoshima, 2 in Miyazaki and 1 in Beppu, taking me right through from the 27th of April to the 3rd of May. But still leaving me nowhere to stay on the 26th. After my last night in Fukuoka I activated my 21-day railpass in the morning and headed to Nagasaki. On my arrival (two trains later) I visited the tourist information office to see if they could help me to book accomodation in Nagasaki for that night, as it turned out they couldn't help with that, though they did suggest a few places I might try. I then went to the JR Hotel on top of the station, since it was nearby, obvious, I could get a discount with my Pass, and it had a glass elevator. I wasn't very hopefull about my chances of getting a room there but I did, so my accomodation problems were solved for the immediate future.

When I went to the Tourist Information centre they had given me some information about a tall ships festival taking place in Nagasaki over few days (I love the way I keep stumbling onto these sort of things). It turned out that on the particular night I was there there was a fireworks display over the harbour, now since my guidebook said the nightime view across the bay from such-and-such a point was particularly spectacular the conclusion was obvious. So that evening after I spent the afternoon visiting the obvious sights in Nagasaki, the Hypocentre, Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Museum, I took the cablecar up to the lookout and watched the fireworks from up there, where they went particularly well with the lights of Nagasaki spread out below.

In the morning I got a train to Kumamoto. I didn't do anything special here my first day, but the next day I visited a graden in the morning before heading off to Mt Aso, my first volcano. Now in another of those interesting messes (involving forgetting my railpass), I got to the station significantly later than I had intended. Fortunatly though this resulted in me getting there around 10 O'clock, and I noticed the departure board mentioned the SL-Boy at 10:15. I remembered from my guide book that this was a steam train that ran the route up Mt. Aso on holidays, but needed reservations, now I assumed it would have been long booked up but thought it couldn't hurt to go ask. As it turns out I am very glaad I did as I greatly enjoyed the ride up to Aso on the train, apparently originally from America, complete with Japanese conductors dressed as cowboys.

Once at Aso I caught a bus further up the mountain, stopping at the Volcano Museum, from where I walked to the bottom of the cable car after looking around. I took the cablecar up to the crater which was a spectacularly barren sight, with the smell of sulphur wafting over everything. I didn't have a whole lot of time up there though as by then it was round 4:00 and the last bus back down was at 5:00, so I soon headed back down, taking first the bus and then the train back to Kumamoto.

The next day in Kumamoto I spent the morning visiting the castle, before taking yet another train on to Kagoshima. Here
I again quickly found my hotel but since I hadn't got out of Kumamoto till rellativly late after visiting the castle I didn't do much that evening other than explore the area a little. The next day I headed out early again to take a ferry to Sakurajima, the island (though actually now connected to a peninsular by a lava flow) volcano close by. I arrived on the island just in time to take a bus tour of the island that left at 9:30 and took up the next 3 hours. After the tour I spent a while walking along the coast before heading back to the mainland. I used the rest of that afternoon to explore the city a little more and climb to the viewpoint that looks out over the city with a good view of Sakurajima before my last night there.

That was yesterday, today I took another train here to Miyazaki, and now after visiting the cities science museum and checking into my hotel it's nearly 6. I have a couple of nights here as I mentioned earlier, I'm planning to visit a small island here tommorow (not volcanic this time), and possibly something else aswell. I'll try to update you again soon as to what I've been and hopefully I'll have made some more plans as to where I'm off to after Beppu so I can fill you in on those as well. (Currently I want to catch the ferry from Beppu to Uwajima but this hasn't been confirmed yet.)

Posted by Haifisch at May 1, 2003 09:46 AM