I think I was a little hasty yesterday in throwing the Aso caldera under the bus when I implied that it was only the ninth largest. Many of those supposedly higher ranking calderas are getting kind of old, like 10-50 million years old. Sure, a geologist’s eye can pick out some eroded depression and get excited, but this is my blog and I’m going to only get excited about fresh, young, visually stunning calderas. And when it comes to those, Toba in Indonesia is #1 and is only 74,000 years old. Maybe we should visit there someday. Yellowstone is #2, kinda old at 630,000 years but rah rah USA. Aso is #3. And of those three Aso is the only one with an active volcano. So apologies to Aso Bear, you do in fact represent a uniquely impressive spot on the globe.
Today was a travel day, first car, then train, ending with a small bus. We said goodbye to Sozankyo, a very nice Ryokan with rather low doorways.
Apple and Google Maps underestimate the driving time on rural roads here by about 20-30%. We made a refueling stop at “Eneos” before returning the car, and it was slightly confusing because I couldn’t tell at first if it was self serve or not. There were attendants running around and guiding me into a spot next to the pump, but it turned out it was self serve. But heavily assisted. My attendant was very helpful navigating the pump controls, and then gave me a package of tissues as a thank you gift. I have no idea if any of this is normal or not.
Oita looked like a sprawling city. We made our way right to the train station core, which is where the rental return was. That also was hard to tell if I was doing the right thing, there wasn’t any signage to speak of, but there was an open parking spot that someone encouraged me to back the car into. That was the right thing to do as it turned out. I paid for the tolls that had accumulated on the ETC card and we were on our way.
We were headed by train to Nakatsu and had a couple of spare hours, so I asked Claude which city I should spend it in, Oita or Nakatsu. Claude was pretty down on Oita and talked up Nakatsu, in particular plugging the karaage fried chicken. Nakatsu seemed pretty sleepy on a Sunday, and the nearest chicken karaage shop was take out only. I think Claude feels an obligation to be upbeat, but Nakatsu was a little oversold. We wandered around and found ourselves in a home decor store that also had a small curry counter.
We still had some time before our Walk Japan group met up, and we found ourselves in this long arcade of shops that were mostly closed for Sunday.
Wait, what is going on down at the end there? It’s a portable shrine! It’s taiko and fue playing!
It’s a small matsuri! They were having a fun time going back and forth on the streets around the train station. Michele was excited.
Thus ended the section of this trip that was just Michele and me, and now begins the social section. We met up with our friends Bill and Pam at the train station, along with the other walking tour people. All told about a dozen of us plus our guide, Jon from Australia. The rest of the group is from Seattle, Sydney, Dublin and England. Ian from Dublin has by far the thickest accent. It brings back the time we used to live there, trying to understand middle aged men talking quickly. I’m trying to retune my ear.
We loaded into a small bus and went up into the nearby hills. Our ryokan this evening is lovely. The onsen had an extensive outdoor area, with a waterfall and very uneven footing.
Ken Chin-Purcell 