I am writing this post on the Shinkansen super express train from Hakata to Osaka after spending three days in the Southern part of Japan at a place called Kumamoto where we had no internet and have therefore not been able to post anything on our blog or upload photos of our days in Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Mount Aso and Kagoshima.
I am now looking forward to connecting back to the internet and reading some news when we get to our hotel in Osaka.
The past few days have been eventful starting from having to face two days of Japanese breakfast to threatening to walk out of the hotel after our first night because the tatami mats were so uncomfortable and the pillows were as hard as rock.
All guide books rave about Nagasaki. But to be honest we were not impressed. It might have been because we were very tired or else because we had just come from Hiroshima which takes all the fame. Nagasaki suffered the same fate as Hiroshima and has a museum as well but we decided to skip it. We also avoided the “Western” part of the city where they even have a small part of the town looking like a Dutch village in memory of the Dutchmen who settled there earlier on. It seemed weird to visit a Dutch city in Japan!
I still managed to take some nice photos though which will be posted later.
Kumamoto –Maruko Hotel
From Nagasaki we headed to Kumamoto, a small city in the middle of Kyushu. The idea was to be able to use this as a base and see the main sights of Southern Japan. Kumamoto is a small town with not much to see but with loads of youngsters roaming around the streets giving it a nice buzz. The centre is full of shops, bars and restaurants and on the second night we spotted a decent place and drank a bottle of Sicilian La Planeta wine only to return the next day for a good ‘Western’ meal.
I had booked a ryokan here because it is recommended in the DK and Lonely Planet guides and the staff were extremely nice and helpful. But it all stopped there. The place seems to be run by a large family – plenty of old aunts are running all over the place dressed in kimonos and constantly bowing at you and repeating “arrigado gozimas” (thank you) until you are tired of it; but the place is quite old and unless you are willing to make use of the communal hot baths your only option is to make use of an extremely tiny bathroom – so tiny that if you stretch out your arms you knock the walls.
Our first room was typical Japanese, so we could not place our suitcases in the main area not to damage the floor mats. We had to leave them by the door of the hotel room which consisted of less than 1 square metre of space. It was really frustrating having to negotiate our way over 2 large suitcases every time we wanted to enter or exit the room or use the bathroom.
After some sightseeing in Kumamoto and a trip to the post office to send home some dirty clothes and give some breathing space to our suitcases (we are now carrying 8.2 kilogrammes less which is huge sigh of relief) we headed back to the Maguro Hotel to have dinner since this is a must in typical Japanese hotels.
Dinner exceeded our expectations. However, we were in for a nasty surprise when we got to the room as they had laid out the tatami mats (to sleep on), and we realised that we would have been better off sleeping on the floor. By the next morning our backs and necks were destroyed.
Angry and exhausted we went down to the reception the next morning to complain but at that moment there was nobody at the desk who could speak English, so we went for breakfast. Suddenly a lady who spoke a little bit of English came to ask us what time we wanted to have dinner served in the evening. In broken English (seems to be the best strategy for communicating with them) I announced loudly that “No dinner – we change hotel – back hurting!!!!”. Suddenly there was a commotion, she ran out of the breakfast room and called someone else who could speak better English and he offered to move us to a “Western” room with two comfortable (insomma not exactly orthopaedic mattresses but still a luxury compared to the previous night) and a decent pillow. The new room was very large – like a small suite – but it seems to have enjoyed better days and was crying out for a make-over. The smell of the old carpet in the room and green tea which was in the Japanese room lingered for the next two days making us crave for an early rise today to head to Osaka. Apart from that, the room was clean and the staff were so nice that we couldn’t bear to insist on leaving the place. The hotel is more than 100 years old and it has the bed spreads to show for this with red, orange and brown embroidered flowers. We concluded that they are older than the Kumamoto castle (part of it was reconstructed in 1960).
On the last day, given that we had to leave early for Osaka but mainly because we could not face another Japanese breakfast (the miso soup is finally starting to get at me), we told them not to bother. Having probably misunderstood, we were surprised when an old Japanese lady simply barged into our room without even bothering to knock on the door to ask us what time we wanted breakfast. Having just got out of the shower, I was in my underpants and started to gesticulate at her. She walked out and then back in again smiling and Giulia politely explained once again that we would not be having breakfast. She had such a big grin on her face that we concluded she probably had not seen a man in his underpants for a while!
To make sure we don’t forget our experience, they even gave us a souvenir when we checked out. I am sure Giulia will find an appropriate place for it.
Mount Aso
After a night on the tatami mats and a bad Japanese breakfast we headed to Mount Aso, the world’s largest caldera with a circumference of over 30 kilometres and with five volcanoes one of which is active.
At the train station, we spotted loads of Japanese getting ready with their cameras as the train approached. At first we wondered what the fuss was all about but then we realised that the train is a special diesel car called the ASO 1962.
The train ride was slow but quite an experience. It felt like being on a Disney train. The hostess came with hats at one point to take photos of people on the train. We stopped for 20 minutes at this place where the train has to zig-zag because the hill is too steep giving us time to take photos and buy a typical Japanese sweet stuffed with a red bean paste (it’s not as bad as it sounds). We always find red bean paste in food when we least expect it… some days ago we bought these delicious smelling sugary doughnuts… they smelt really good, until we took a bite and found red bean paste inside - ughh!
We then headed to the ropeway which took us to the top of the active volcano. The view was fantastic and we could take some great photos of the smoke and a ‘green’ lake 100 metres down the crater. I forgot to bring some winter clothes with me and paid the price since it was extremely cold. However, the scenery was great so the cold did not bother us so much.
After descending again, I decided we had not seen enough and suggested we go to the Mount Aso Volcano museum. After a tour around, we went to the bus stop and waited and waited before we finally realised that we had to wait for more than an hour for the next bus. (We got to know too late and only after having spent most of the time waiting in the cold). In order to keep warm we decided to buy hot dogs from a van parked outside the museum. Like most Japanese who know some English he asked: “Where you from?” I told him: “Malta” … as usual I was about to say “Near Italia”. But surprisingly he said: “Valletta City” though he pronounced it something like Balletta city. Then he told us about a film director and the film Erik the Viking which presumably was filmed in Malta. Apparently he is a big fan! We couldn’t believe it, usually we get blank looks and then we say ‘near Italia’ and then they say ‘ah ah Italia Italia, Roma…’ and go on blabbing about Italy…
In the evening another thing surprised us. There was this most incredible car park with the cars actually rotating and the drivers waiting at the entrance for their car. It looked like one big ferris wheel. We still cannot figure out how it all works but it is really incredible. What is more impressive, and this we had also seen at our hotel in Nagasaki is a circular mechanism on the floor which turns the car 180 degrees so that no reversing in tight corners is required. Really ingenious and practical.
Kagoshima
Kagoshima is considered to be the Naples of Japan since it is overlooked by an active volcano lying on an island opposite the main city.
We walked to the port area from the station which also has a large ferris wheel at the entrance seeing the main sights of the city. At the port area, we had lunch as we looked at the smoke coming out of the volcano and then crossed to the island and took a bus trip to get a closer view of the eruption. It was meant to be called the lava observatory but there was no fresh lava to see even though smoke was coming out from two parts of the crater. Since this volcano is deemed to be very active, we could not approach the peak unlike in Mount Aso.
The scenery was beautiful though it was evident that the people on the island are not used to Westerners as the people just stared at us.
We will now spend one day in Osaka then head to the Ise peninsula tomorrow to stay in another ryokan.
Ciao for now. We will probably be connected again when we get back to Tokyo on Thursday.
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