Golden Week

Well golden week ended in a blur of events. I drove our whole Kyushu trip and about died doing it. Hours upon hours of navigation into mountains with the boxy mobile. The car was a bit too small and we didn't get too lost except in Kumamoto. First up was Yuifuin and Beppu where we hit up the hot spring town with plenty of sulfurous smelling water. It was cool to see blood red and bright blue pools of water. We also ate eggs that claimed to add 2 years to your life it you ate them. We spend the night in yufuin was was vastly different that Beppu. Where Beppu was large and busy, Yufuin was serene and quite. It was definately inaka, but our Ryokan was gorgeous with a gorgeous view. We had access to private onsens and had an amazing Japanese style dinner and breakfast. We headed out that rainy morning to Mt. Aso(a volcano) and arrived around lunch time. We were going to hike but the rain proved too much so we took a cable car to the top.
It was an awesome view point at the top and afterwards I had the local delicacy of Kumamoto Beef curry. That night we stayed in a cabin at the base of the mountain and slept on the flattest futon known to human kind. Although that place was very clean and neat. We hit up a random restaurant we I ate some omu-rice. The next day was the longest drive consisting of at least 8 hours of driving. On the way out we hit up a place called farm land in the middle of no-where. It had these pod like houses and pools where small fish could clean your feet


Once in Nagasaki we headed out for some shopping. We didn't make it very far because we were exhausted . We snagged some okonomiyaki for dinner and went to bed at the worst hotel I have been to in Japan. It was just old, but not dirty so I didn't mind too bad. We hit up the local spots the next day because we had two days in Nagasaki. First was a shrine where I got omikuge , its like a fortune from a shrine and this one happened to be in English. Note the top of the picture is cut off it says BAD LUCK!!
It was devastating but at least I could tie it up and dispel the bad luck. Next was glover garden established by a man of Scottish decent. It was beautiful and was packed. Except we went straight to the tea house because we were starving. We got a parfait and some delicious tea.

After Glover we got tons of castella cake. No joke we bought at least 10 boxes of castella between the three of us and then we proceeded to eat it. Its like a dense cake soaked in sugar and baked. Its the staple food of nagasaki along with champon ramen which I also ate. We headed to the peace park which was incredibly sad but very informative especially with the recent threat of nuclear problems. We ended the day in china town eating delicious foods and shopping . The restaurant we went too was highly recommended. The next day we headed to shimabara and took the ferry across the water to Kumamoto city.
Here there was a giant castle and it was a gorgeous day. This guy posed with us and I couldn't stop laughing because he looked like a host samurai.... We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out and spent the night in a super hotel. The drive back was terrible to say the least. We took a ''short cut'' sending us into the mountains for around 2 hours with little gas for the car. It was horrifying and I will post a video of it shortly. I was almost hit by an old man flying past us on a one lane road that was meant to two way traffic. good times. Got to Nichinan around 7ish and passed out later. And thus the swag
Other things of note were:
-buying a random watermelon in the middle of no where for $18 which is cheap.
-Random man in the massage chair room that we scared the shit out of, he bowed at least 5 times and left(he also had host hair). Also there was this creepy exercise rider machine(very questionable)
-Getting told to be quiet in our hotel room.
-There was a hole in the shower at the crappy hotel.