Aso!

Aso!, I here you say, that is meant to be some expression of surprise reserved for Japanese folk.
WEll be informed readers, that is not entirely true.

It is indeed a region in central kyuushuu renound for volcanic activity. And forms the middle of my central Kyuushuu island adventure.

But before I get to the guts of Aso and smoking volcanos, I had an exceptional Monday, and I have to say monday evening too. I shall elaborate...i.e.go off on tangent....

Nagasaki worked its charms on me, then it was time to head to Aso on the 1245 train - with several housewifes, retired folk, and young japanese females chatting into their mobiles. I am getting familiar with ordering lunch from the 7-11 or kiosks so proliferic in train stations. This usually consisits of the ubiquitious obentoo, plastic delicacies, onigiri, tofu, the odd piece of fruit, the very odd sandwich with no brown bread just all sweet things, and any number of drinks from ice tea to vege juices. It would not be complete without 2 minute noodle versions either. This makes eating on the run very easy, and I see now with all the running and walking that japanese have such little obesity!!

So to cut a long winded story short, I decided I had left clothes at Akira hostel almost to Kumamoto 2 hrs from　Nagasaki, and debated the merits and flaws of returing that day or in a weeks time. The latter would have really put the pressure on the timetable so I resorted to returning to Nagasaki and a late night, again! Thiｓ meant a desperate attempt to get to the hostel by tram, pick up clothes, return to train station and get aboard with a minute to spare.....it did not quite work that way, and I found myself embarrassingly hoofing it down the main drag with 10kg aback and 7 kg a front of me, my language ability severly deteriorating in the process, only to reach the bullet train (the irony!) in time for a trip to Aso via Tosa, which eventually arrived at 9pm. Who knows what would have happened if I had missed that one all together.............

So I got to Aso, and turned up at the poky little station with kids returning from a day at school, at 9pm. The crickets were going mad, as too were the frogs, as Aso is quire rural and all those sounds just descend on you. What a relaxing way to arrive!.... Then there was a bit of help from a bystander （every bystander is so generously helpful) who helped me phone to shinotani san. I had tried 5 times without success since leaving Nagasaki to contact her, but figured that every time it was engaged she was having a damn good chin wag with some of her Aso friends or using the internet. She kindly came to colect me and gave me a driving experience on　par with chinese and vietnamese road logic, or lack of. And we muddled along in some japanenglish quite nicely too. They settled me in, and even made sure that my soba were perfectly cooked (late evenign snack as the obentoo dinners do not quite cut the mustaｒｄ！）

I had an intersting night too, and so too did Kenzo san evidently.

The corridor was long, the doors all look the same, and I was pretty stuffed from the pace of it all coming from Nagasaki. So when I came back from a night trip to the loo about 1am, and wandered in to 102, not 103 like I had wanted to, I gave someone who later turned out to be Kenzo san a rather big fright. While I don:t make habit of bed hopping, particularly with strange men, it was a little embarrassing, but a genuine honest mistake that a few gomen nasais seemed to fix....I think! It was worth a few laughs today climbing Aso too and　I learnt how to say fall down, which I did, in japanese.

So I will have to leave the spice on Aso there, and spread it out for next blog! It will have it all, azaleas, wildflowers, arty shots, and kagoshima stories, almost as good as the 'mistaken identity bed hopping' one!

Oyasumi nasai! goodnight in my nakazano ryokan yukata writing at this free internet keyboard that keeps resorting to japanese script, well bugger me...

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