Phew,
finally I have time to continue my travel entries. Sorry for the long wait and here we go.

My second day in Kumamoto I didn't really spend in Kumamoto itself. I went to Aso-san, an active volcano which you can reach with a short train ride from Kumamoto.

Kumamoto - Day 2 (August 13th, 2008):



So early in the morning I went straight to Kumamoto Station. I wanted to have as much time as possible for Aso-san ^-^



The train ride was really interesting. The nature around Aso is breathtaking and awesome beyond words! Of course I took some photos (^^)



As you can see there were quite some clouds. I was afraid that it might start raining and that I wouldn't be able to go and see the crater.



But I had no time to worry. I continued taking photos of the awesome landscape there.



After over 1 hour we finally arrived at Aso St.



First thing I saw when I left the train was this cute koala stone statue.



On my way to the bus stop, I stopped to take this photo. I like it a lot.



And one more of our cute, red train. I like the colors in this photo :)



After buying lunch and waiting for the bus for quite a while, I was finally IN the bus and on my way up to the ropeway.
There were a LOT of Chinese people in the bus. One (fat ...) American family and the only other foreigners apart from them and me was a young woman with her boyfriend sitting in front of me - so I could hear what they were talking about.
Funny enough they were Germans and I'm SURE they didn't think of the possibility that I might be German, too XDDDD The world is small ... sometimes ;)
The windows of the bus were pretty dirty ... that's why there are no good photos (T_T)



And I was finally up there, but sat down on a bench and had lunch first before riding the ropeway up to the crater ^^



That was inside the ropeway station.



Finally in the gondola ... it started to rain -______________________- .....



Up at the crater station. It looks like it's only raining up there, not down where I came from .. great (T_T)



You can't access the areas with light on -___- .... it's getting better and better. What did I come here for then?



Everybody including me was waiting for that heavy rain to stop. Waiting ... waiting, waiting and ... waiting.



In the end we were all send down again, because it was too dangerous to stay up there as it was windy and the crater was emitting poisonous stuff ....
So this is on my way down again. Over 1000Yen for nothing? .....
I was REALLY pissed! As it was early afternoon and I didn't see a thing so far, I decided to patiently wait and hoped for a wonder.
And after some time of waiting we were allowed to go up again.
I didn't want to pay another 1000Yen, so I explained what happened (luckily my Japanese was good enough for that) and so they let me go up with a free ticket.



This time I hurried outside and walked as fast as I could as I absolutely wanted to see the crater before another alarm would force us all down again ^^; ....



The landscape up there was really interesting. I took a lot of photos ^^;





And here it is! I finally reached the crater! ^-^; It was worth all that trouble. YAY!!!!!!
I've never seen an active crater. I went to the Vesuvio in Neapel in Italy, but I can't remember anything about that time. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't that impressive at all.



I'm sorry for posting so many photos of the crater, but you can imagine how happy I was that I was able to finally see it. (don't ask how many photos I took of it! XD)









After a while I finally managed to say goodbye to the crater and walked around a little bit. That crater was still the only area we were allowed to visit as it was still dangerous. I wonder what else was there to see. Oh well .... the landscape around the crater was really interesting and awesome ^^





And end station .... like I said we were not allowed to go to the other areas ;o; ....



I like the colors in this one.



As you can see there was quite a long lava-walk and on the left you can see the smoke of the crater.



From up there I also took this photo ^^



Still very cloudy. I just didn't have much luck with the weather that day.



You can go up to the crater by car (if you have one).





These things were almost everywhere. It's for protection I guess. When the crater suddenly emits poisonous vapors, then people can go in there. There were some people up there selling volcano stones, postcards and stuff, I guess it's mainly for them as they stay up there the whole day.



There was also this sign which tells you if it's okay for YOU to go to the crater right now ^-^



Finally down again I checked out all the souvenirs.



Really cute stuff, but I didn't buy anything ^^;





In the bus on my way down. Again it was difficult to make good photos through the dirty window. And yes those are cows ^^



Finally back in Kumamoto City, I went straight to the shopping arcade and into the next restaurant and I wanted raw fish.
Yummie (that was one of those shops where you buy a food ticket ^^).



After dinner I decided to walk around the shopping arcade and check out the shops and stuff.



There was some sort of small museum and it was free, so I went in. They had a huuuge library with tons of books in tons of languages. I saw some Japanese people (even in my age) sitting there and was impressed that they actually sat there and read something ... but coming closer I saw that almost all of them only grabbed the few manga that were available and read those (T___T) ahem~



After the museum (it was still not dark outside) I decided to continue with my shopping arcade tour or whatever you can call it XD



I found this poster in the window of a travel agency and of course couldn't resist ;P

I was getting tired and decided to grab something nice and go back to the hotel.



That's what I got. It was really yummie ^-^ I ate it in my hotel room while watching some Japanese tv.



Of course I also brought some starbucks love along ;)



Then I decided to go out one last time as I wanted to take night shots of the Castle (see last entry).
This statue is in front of the castle area.



It didn't really work. My camera sucks when it comes to night shots -__- ....



And that's it. Right after that I went straight to bed as the next morning I had to leave for Kagoshima (where I spent 3 days) early.



I hope you're looking forward to the next post (Kagoshima - Day 1).


Bye-chu~ (^-^)/ ~