Epic Golden Week Adventure - Mt Aso and Kumamoto

Only day two of our epic adventure and we decided to climb a mountain. I knew this before we left and really should have bought better shoes, but the ones I got off Mark before leaving NZ  have been through a lot so figured they were up to the challenge. We decided to pay the little bit extra and take the limited express from Beppu and although we rode unreserved there were plenty of seats but lots of people got on at Oita (shame Jenn wasnt in town this weekend). We got off at Miyaji as our plan was to put our bags in a locker there and head up from Aso station doing a loop back down picking them up before heading to Kumamoto for a night. I did an amazing tetris job to fit all our four bags into a Y600 locker but the coin insert part was broken so we ended up having to lock them up at Aso but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the ropeway down to Miyaji was shut today. (Sorry if that sentence made no sense). Anyways after two trains, a bus and a ropeway we made it up to the famous caldera at Mount Naka

Seeing as the ropeway on the other side of the mountain was closed we didn't have time to walk the whole way and back (as there are only 6 buses a day back to the station) but still followed the path for a while which was pretty fun. Unfortunately Louise didn't bring her arch supports so couldn't walk with us but Marc, Mindy and I enjoyed the little mountain climbing adventure

The trains around there don't run quite so often so we had time for an onsen close to the station between our bus down from Aso and our train to Kumamoto. We booked into our Toyoko Inn (nice and close to the station) and went out to try the local dish basashi (or raw horse sashimi). Like a lot of things in Japan the english translation often doesnt sound that appetising or enjoyable but it was surprisingly good, and washed down with a few glasses of umeshu. Off to Nagasaki tomorrow...