…..and here it is! The final installment of our fabulous road trip around Kyushu with Mommy. I left off with Monday, which wasn’t such a good day for us, and it seemed almost like if it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have had any luck at all. 
Our luck picked up, though, and we were able to enjoy a wonderful last few days on the road.
Mommy and I spent the night in Joel’s enormous house. Honestly, about two or three of my houses could fit into his. I’m not joking! Mommy kept saying “I just wish that you all could have something nice like this.” We don’t, and it’s whatever. That’s just the way the cookie crumbled, and we’re perfectly content with our lot in life here in Yunomae in our tiny little house. 
Since Ian had to spend the night in Yunomae and the first train back to Kumamoto arrived at 11:33AM, we picked him up from the station there. Then we were off to Takachiho Gorge in Miyazaki Prefecture!
Takachiho is supposed to be the birth place of Japan. It’s kind of like their Garden of Eden. From the city, it took us about 2.5 hours to get there because the traffic was horrendous. It was bummer-to-bummer on the tiny two lane road outside of the city, and we lost probably forty-five minutes just idling through traffic. Ugh! The trip there was gorgeous. Clouds hung low over the mountains, giving it that smoky look (below, left). Once we got to the town of Takachiho, we missed our turn and had to turn around, getting stuck behind a bus that was in absolutely no rush to get anywhere. Once we finally got there, we realized that everyone and their mother had the same idea that day: go to Takachiho. Since it was the Japanese holiday of Obon, a time to spend with family, big tourist attractions like Takachiho were busy. If the hundreds of other people milling around and getting in the way of photo opportunities wasn’t enough, it started to POUR DOWN RAIN on us. Basically as soon as we got out of the car, it started to rain and didn’t take long to gather strength and fully pour. We tried to make the most of our time there because it’s SUCH a beautiful place (the clear blue water runs through a deep gorge, and there’s even a waterfall), but the the steady rain challenged us. 
It didn’t take too long until we looked like drowned rats (below, right)!
The more the rain continued, the more the crowd thinned. Not us! We continued to wander around the area, exploring the back “shopping” section of a few restaurants. Most remaining people were either crowded in the restaurants or huddled under the front awnings waiting out the rain. Not us! We continued on, exploring the pools of water where you could fish, and if you caught one, the workers at the tent on the side would cook it up for you immediately. Ha! I really wanted to spend more time there, but since the rain wasn’t letting up, we kind of rushed ourselves. I was surprised at how much the water level changed in just an hour. It went from being a gentle stream to a semi-raging river. Water gushed off the mountainsides, and even new waterfalls were created just in that short amount of time! I don’t have too many good pictures of the gorge yet, (Ian has yet to process the pictures from our good camera) but the best one is below. When the weather is nice, you can rent a row boat and paddle under the waterfall. I definitely want to go back! Below right is a sign explaining about the gorge, but it’s the BEST Engrish I’ve seen in a while. In case you can’t read it, it says that Takachiho “…was the tirst island to be created by the cods.” HAHAHAHA!!! Perfect!
We made our way back to Kumamoto City and ate dinner at Reef Burger with Mary and Yuusuke that night. Mommy was introduced to the best burger in Kumamoto!! Then it was back to Joel’s for one more night before our last day of adventure.
Wednesday was my last day of vacation and last day of our Kyushu road trip. We packed up our little tiny car in the morning and dropped off Ian at the Menkyo Center for what we hoped would be the last time. He successfully checked in, so Mommy and I left him to take his test and drove to Mt. Aso for more volcano-exploring. Mt. Aso has the world’s largest caldera and gives Kumamoto its name. Thanks to Mt. Aso, Kumamoto means “land of fire.” Before it blew its top, Aso was the tallest mountain in Japan…..however that title is now given to Mt. Fuji.
In July when Kumamoto was flooding so badly, Kumamoto City and the Aso area took the brunt of the flooding problems, and it was very evident. On the way to Aso, we saw the aftermath of a giant landslide on the mountainside. A hole chunk of the mountain was just….gone. On the road up to Mt. Aso, it was evident that the road had suffered from the flooding. Parts of it were down to one lane simply because the other half of the road had been washed away. Around the gullies pockets of leftover mud, limbs, and debris still clung to the roadside. The Aso area is known for its fertile pasture land, and something like 70% of Kumamoto’s milk product comes from Aso. However, a lot of the pasture land was unusable. The mountainside was riddled with eroded pockets that had broken away and slammed into fences, breaking down the wooden fences. Without fences, the cows could roam wherever they pleased….. Even with all of the broken fences we saw, there were still several cows on the mountain. We stopped to photograph some of them (below, left). I was quite intimidated by the silly cow because it kept wanting to stick its arm length tongue out and lick me. Yuck!! 
From the top of the mountain, we could see for miles (above, right). It’s a gorgeous view! Except for the actual crater, everything on Aso is SO GREEN. It’s beautiful! We parked in the parking lot just below the crater and walked up. The hike up is indeed a little steep, but Mommy took it like a champ! We had to break a couple of times, but we made it to the top. The landscape of the crater is very different from the rest of the mountain. There’s nothing at the top except rocks and ashy-sand. Vast expanses of Aso look like a wasteland (below, left). It’s very interesting to go to Aso and look in the crater. The first time I went, I was expecting to see a liquid hot boiling pit of lava, but the only thing in Aso’s crater is a bluish sea of sulfur. It was difficult to see the day that we went because the steam coming off of it obstructed our view (below, right).
The crater is a huge tourist attraction, and there were venders selling chunks of the sulfur. I told Mommy that a chunk of sulfur would definitely be a good gift for Daddy. We tried to buy a chunk, but the vender told us that we couldn’t because airlines don’t allow it on the planes….even in checked luggage. Fail! Mommy asked me what the concrete buildings all around were (below, left). I explained to her that in the 1900s when Aso erupted, several tourists were visiting the crater and……didn’t make it. After that, the visitor’s center built several shelters around the crater to protect tourists from the blast in case anything ever happens like that again. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to play around at the crater because Ian text me to say that he was finished with his test…..and didn’t pass. He was in no mood to talk about it or to wait around for us, so we hurried off the mountain, stopped by the gift shop for delicious milk-flavored ice cream (below, right), and headed back to the Menkyo Center to pick him up.
Both of us were quite disappointed that he didn’t get his license. After that day, he could no longer legally drive in Japan. With tails tucked between our legs, we decided to head home, closing off our road trip on a not so happy note.
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