After another restful night (it was particularly restful becaused it rained the whole night through and rainy nights, to me, are the best to sleep through), we woke up to another wet morning. We decided that we shall explore the shops here that open at 9am and leave to explore other areas, since we might come back after 5pm and miss the shops again. So, after a buffet breakfast, we wandered in the shops, ranging from those selling fresh farm vegetables (from farmers nearby since Mount Aso region has very fertile land), cheese products, beauty products, lots of local cakes/candy/biscuits, musical box shop, bag shop etc. It was late morning by the time we set off to explore the volcanoes.
We drove along with beautiful views like this:
Raindrops
Our reliable GPS brought us towards the Aso Kusasenri Field and we stopped at the lookout:
The Aso Kusasenri Field from the lookout
This is one of my favourite place. Look how green it is. On a fine day, it is possible to do horse riding here. But today will be the horses’ rest day, it being a rainy day. So, they are out grazing on the field. 😛
We drove onwards, all the way to the ropeway station. Unfortunately, the volcano is spewing some ash and since May, the ropeway and hence the volcano is closed to public. Sigh…… There goes my hope. This was my third visit to Kyushu and second attempt at going up the volcano. But… it was not meant to be.
Ropeway up the volcano
This is the ropeway station building:
The Mount Aso Ropeway station
So, we turned back and headed for the next best option – Mount AsoVolcano Museum (note that parking fees apply on per entry basis). We can watch the live broadcast of the volcano in the safety of the museum. Unfortunately, no photo-taking is allowed in the volcano. But it was a nice museum, with lots of information on plate tectonics and the many different types of volcanoes. But not everything has English translation. We took this at the entrance of the museum:
Alert on status of active volcano
It shows the alert status of the volcano. Currently, it is at level 2. The immediate surroundings of the volcano spewing ash and toxic gases is out of bounds. But there is no need for evacuation yet.
After the Volcano Museum visit, we went around the shops, some situated further down the carpark. And we had a wonderful lunch of udon and ramen:
Udon and Ramen
Most shops here cater to busloads of tourists. So, it was nice and quiet to have lunch here after lunch hours.
After lunch, we drove towards Takachiho Gorge. The roads were like this for part of the way:
Winding road
But it was worth the drive. Once at the gorge, there are 2 places to park. The first we came to is above the gorge and parking is cheaper here. But then, to go into the gorge, one has to walk down many steps. It was raining and so, we opted to drive to the bottom of the gorge since the most beautiful park of the gorge, the waterfall, is nearer the base of the gorge. But take note of the narrow road leading to the bottom of the gorge. It was still raining so we did not venture far from the carpark area which has a few shops.
Map of Takachiho Gorge
But this is beautiful view we got:
Waterfall
The waterfall is slighly shorter than usual because water level in the river is very high due to the non-stop rains. And the river is brownish in colour, as it is carrying large amounts of sediments.
River
We also visited the shops here but what is best is the bbq-ed glutinous rice on skewers sold here, just beside the carpark. There is a type of sweet and salty dark soya sauce spread on it and the whole thing is bbq-ed with charcoal. And it was yummy! We forgot to take photos before tucking in though. 😛 Sorry.
After that, we drove back towards our accomodations. Back at Aso Farm Village, we chose grilled meat for today’s dinner.
Grilled meat
Again, it was really delicious. Besides the meat, there is carrots, a green chilli and a piece of Konyaku (the kind we eat as jelly) to bbq and dip into their yummy sauce.
Then, back to our dome via those glittering lights again.
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