I'm learning something interesting comparing my touring aruond Kyushu to that of Hokkaido - which is despite Hokkaido being the north island and the home of skiing in Japan, unless you go deep into the ski slopes, Kyushu, the South island, looks no different - and in many ways as picturesque. Finishing up my time in the South Island today, and I can confidently say that I have loved my time here. Now, I like Sapporo a lot, and feel it unfair to make a direct comparison given how much weather impacted my planned itinerary in Hokkaido (which was basically monsoons the second I got outside the Sapporo metro area) verse how little it has impacted my time in Kyushu (other than one aspect we'll get to tomorrow). It may be sad how much waether can change your perspectives, especially in cases like this where the risk of rain is more or less the same in both Hokkaido and Kyushu this time of year, but one one of the two had the bad luck show up.
The main goal today was to see as much of Mt. Aso National Park and the surrounding forests and hills as possible, with knowledge that at minimum the caldera (crater) on top of Mt. Aso is off limits as there are still some potential concerns of eruption. Nothing imminent but random bits of gas getting thrown up every now adn then. From what I gather the continued closure (it's been a few months) is becoming somewhat controversial. Anyway, while taht is closed off, there are a lot of other joys sitting aroudn the actual mountainside itself and hills and valleys surrounding it.
Starting with my first stop of the day t the Kikuchi Gorge. Technically this is a long area, but one three KM stretch has been cordoned off and turned into a great nature trail featuring four or five waterfalls, some great sightlines, greenery, forestry and some magical surroundings. It is something that reminds me of similar waterfalls in say Luang Prabang (though oyu can't swim here) or other ares, but with a cooler air of Japan. The whole thing is well marked, takes 45-60 minutes (you can shorten in by 25-50% by taking the "small loop") and is a great entry point to this part of the world of Kyushu. However, all the other stops, at least that I went to, stray away from the depths of the forests into more aerial sights.
The next stop was the Daikanbo Lookout, which is a nearby peak close to Mt Aso where you can drive basically to the top. The only problem is while the air was cool, clear and calm below, the higerh you get up the mountain, generally once you get past the 2000 foot elevation mark, it starts to get very foggy. The Daikanbo Lookout is around 3,000 feet. Mt Aso tops out at 5,000 feet. So, basically at the Daikanbo Lookout, instead of really being able to see anything up, we could see patches of he farmland, the lush, lush farmland and towns and stuff below in fleeting moments between successive rolls of fog. It was wonderfully beautiful in an eerie way, and it was downright cold at the lookout and crazy windy. It was all a wild experience, if not what the scene should actually be showing.
From tehre you can drive quickly to the town of Aso (the route I took probably adds 30 minutes to just driving straight to Aso), which is a small town with a main drag with seemingly some restuarants that all seemed closed. I know for sure the one I had planned to go was closed on Thursdays (I had initially planned this Aso trp for yesterday), but instead went to this almost Wawa-like place that served hot food bar, grab and go food, and hot food made to order. The choice was endless and overwhelming and in the end I picked a handful of types of skewers and definitely didn't get theri best, but it was good enough. It was also at this point I got an email from Tabelog telling me my omakase meal was cancelled as the restaurant was unexpectedly closed, with a note from the owner saying he has hurt his finger so he cannot prepare the meal. I applaud them for the honesty and integrity, but it did suck. Panicking, I spent ten imnutes in my car finding random fancier spots taht had last minute availability, finally settling on an affordable omakase spot.
From there, I drove onto the mountainside of Mt Aso, going to the check-in point which I knew was closed beyond that. What I wasn't sure about was the four or so spots I had earmarked on Mt Aso, how many of those are similarly closed. Turns out at least two were, adn the other two were likely going to be similary foggy, and hazy and tricky to wander around in the case they were open, so I cut my losses and headed down the other side of Mt. Aso to a few more lookouts and sites.
The ones on the other side were similarly beautiful, especially the views of the lush greenery. This was like driving throuhg Scotland or the Shenandoah Valley or something like this (actually the fogginess at the peak reminds me of a Shenandoah trip a few years back). It was all so beautiful - even when you reach back the ground level (the valley, basically) the views of the hills aroudn you are stunning. There are just endless lookouts and picture spots, some enticing enough to lead me to truly dangerous things like stopping on an empty road and grabbing a picture and hoping I could do all this before a car appeared at the end of the rearview mirror. In the end, it was a truly great drive.
Tehre were two last stops however, both done a bit impromptu. The less meaningful was a stop at Yamada Milk Company, a milk and (more notably) ice cream spot that had some lovely ice cream - where in Japan it taste a bit more like what the literal words should indicate - iced cream/milk. It was quite great, and right on the way back. The other spot before that though was just awesome - named Fairy Zoo, it is something of a petting zoo right in the foothills of the mountains, with again these imposing hills. In this little area, a couple and a few other farmhands have this little area of two stables and pens of first the fluffiest dogs ever, and then sheep (woolly as hell), goats & lambs, guinea pigs, chickens, donkeys and horses. The goats and lambs were the highlight - the pen had about 20 of them, including three of four tiny little babies. He would let people hold the babies, telling me taht the little adorable thing I held was just three days old. Not sure if this is true, but at most it wasn't much more than that.
There's another more open area (with low fences) which sits four or five pigs who were perfectly fat, about five turltes with some marvelously strong looking shells and a handful of capybaras. Look, I'm not normally a zoo person, and even less so a petting zoo person, but this was on the way, had some amazing reviews and is maybe the best mom and pop run business I've ever seen in therm sof hteir gentleness (the animals, for once, look happy) and care for customers. If you are ever planning a day trip in the Mt. Aso area, try to make a stop at Fairy Zoo possible.
It took a while to get back because I had put my rental return as the airport, but after moving my flight up tomorrow, the rental would be closed. The airport is directly on the way back from the South end of Aso, but it is frustratingly far away from the city (which also has implications for my taxi tomorrow morning). I have no diea why this city has its airport so far away. I get that more people in Japan take trains to travel around, but Kumamoto is actually more well connected to more cities than say Nagasaki, but the airport sits a good 40 minute ride away.
After finishing, I only got back to my AirBNB at 6:15, giving me some time to pack up as much as I can today in advance of tomorrow as it will be an early start. My dinner was a Kaiseki place whose name is in Japanese, but was a really great 4.02 on Tabelog (and 4.6 on Google), and affordable at around $90 and was as exacting, careful, delicate as you would expect. It is crazy how fresh some of the ingredeints are. The highlights were the horse sashimi (which was insanely good), a really wonderful unagi preparation with a little herb on top that he called "tree bud" but gave this almost lemongrass like flavor, to what was probably the best dish of the night, a brilliant miso soup with little dollops of miso flower in it and maitake mushroom, eggplant and lobster. The whole meal was wonderful, especially as something i had to rush and book last minute. In the end, probably better to add another kaiseki meal instead of a third sushi omakase.
From there, I first went back to Bar Ladybird, as it is a graet place with a really earnest barman and he was also the person who gave me the recommendation of Yamada Milk House. The drinks were great again, with once again great little presentation boxes - one replete with moss and deer, his interpretation of the forests around Mt. Aso. The next stop was a new one, and a place that makes me wonder if I've missed out on similar places elsewhere. It's name is basically Japanese Sake Bar (not sure if the name is more inventive in Japanese). It basically serves sake (obviously) but throws in a lot of extras. First, anyone coming gets three shot-sized portions of sake for free, along with two appetiziers (more amouse bouche sized) as part of the cover charge. Then, if you order a sake glass, you get three more shot sized tastings. In the end, you can sample a bunch for not all that much, and it was wholly a great experience. The last stop was Rock Bar Days, which may end up as my last traditional rock bar that I will visit on this trip, but again just hit the spot with cheap highballs, a good crowd, great music, and a great way to end my time in Kyushu - where you can really tell it is less foreigners, it is more real and it is so worth visiting. Sure, not on your first trip to Japan, but definitely on a second.
