Kyushu, we lava yu.

- March 29, 2019

Like I've mentioned before, we have really tried on this trip to take it easy and not squeeze every last place in. We have visited the main island Honshu, Shikoku, and now Kyushu. Kyushu we decided to go to because it warms up first, and seems to have plenty of off the beaten track spots. Or maybe its off the beaten path in low season time. Either way, often we never saw another obvious tourists and that is always a little cool. We decided that our last two weeks were going to be in cities. So we immersed ourselves in nature. With one day checking out Mount Aso, and active volcano that was actually letting out a dangerous amount of sulphur at the time we visited. So unfortunately, we couldn't hike it. Since 2009, the town has just re-opened for the first time in February of this year, so we were thankful for what we got! I have been blown away by the diversity of Japan. From the cities, to geographical landscapes, to how often they are hit with earthquakes and other natural disasters, its really a crazy place to explore.

Our second Volcano was Sakurajima. A strange town that is completely built under active volcano. It's so much apart of their daily lives that most days the whole town is covered in ash. They sweep it up, and leave it out in yellow bins for collection. Not to mention how many times a year there are eruptions ... and explosive eruptions. As I wrote this I tried to find the exact counts as there was already 40+ this year I think.. and it was currently errupting. You can only get about 2.5km to the volcano and even as Yoshi and I ate our lunch, our food was already thinly covered in ash. Because of the Volcanic ash, the soil is extremely fertile, and they grow the worlds largest daikons here as well. We had free bikes from our hotel and had an amazing day biking around this crazy volcanic town!