Nah. Found a hotel in nearby Kumamoto city to stay, and had the rest of the day free to go up and look at the crater of mount aso. The weather was cold, but sunny and clear for the first time in days. It was worth waiting for. Perfect viewing conditions for the only active volcano crater in the world that you can look into directly.
Try as I might I just cant get photos to appear on this site – a combination of my technical shortcomings and those of this galaxy tablet, which I’m beginning to think is little more than a toy.
Photos are on http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=11119647006/a=142900789_142900789/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
I dont like technology and I think technology knows that
No disrespect to technology editors of course. Niall – what a lovely area you taught in. I didn’t make it as far as takamori but was in Minamiaso, nearby. Lovely rural area of pretty houses, vegetabe patches and rice paddies. I went strawberry picking the other day. They were in greenhouses, but delicious, and I had a hilarious time with the people running the place trying to chat about ichigo in japanese.
sorry this post is all over the place. I need a subeditor!
Anyway, the volcano was amazing. You could see steam and gas gushing out of the ground in huge amounts. The best thing was the noise it made – a very deep booming, hissing, rumbling sound. I chatted to one of the guys standing at the edge making sure conditions were safe and he said it’s when the noise and steam stop that you have to worry. Like if you had a kettle with no exit for the vapour. Sooner or later it goes boom.
A lot of the time the viewing spots are closed because the air is not breathable, and the whole place is on constant alert to evacuate at a moment’s notice if anything changes. It was rare not only to be there at all but for conditions to be such that you could see the bottom of the crater and the gases coming out of the ground. Definitely worth waiting for!
Jules on Tour 
March 23, 2014 at 9:55 am
Can’t seem to get into your Snapfish album, at least not without having a login, but it sounds like you had a great time 🙂
April 9, 2014 at 6:25 pm
I’m a little late to this comment party, but feel compelled to share my first and only experience on the bullet train: I was 9 years old and tagging along with my mom from Tokyo to Kyoto. I walked around the train looking to be entertained, as only an obnoxious 9-year-old can. A man in a business suit was nonchalantly and openly reading a book of what appeared to be cartoons. I snuck into the seat behind him so I could read over his shoulder, and was treated to some of the gnarliest manga I have ever seen, and that’s still true 20-some years on.