Whenever I see a sign written in English here I almost always stop to read it - not because I think it might be telling me something important but because more often than not it provides me with a good laugh. Yesterday when I was at the train station I couldn't help but stop and take a few photos of some of the signs they had... not only was the English funny but so were the pictures! I particularly like the picture of the guy on the train with his giant bag!
Lets just say Japan has a facination with rice... they eat it three times a day, something I don't intend on doing. It's pretty difficult to find any food that you would consider truly "Western" or something we could get in New Zealand. For example they have bread here but its twice as thick and tastes like pure sugar. They have cornflakes (about the only cereal you can get here), but there is more sugar in the box than cornflakes themselves. This means whenever we come across any "Western" food it's a real highlight and memories of all the foods I miss come flooding back... like PIZZA! We had heard of a pizza restaurant in Beppu, where I work, that apparently made pretty good pizzas. I
had been dying to go there for quite some time and finally my chance came a few nights ago. For some odd reason Japanese people think corn is a standard pizza topping so after working out which ones didn't have corn we were pleased to be presented with a couple of delicious pizzas that I will no doubt have again. They even deliver on scooters with little warming ovens on the back! Mmmmm pizza!
Nathan decided to get up at 4.30am the next morning to tramp up Karakunidake - a 1700m extinct volcano, the highest point in the National Park. He decided to go at that time of the morning in hope of being at the top in time for a stunning sunrise... it was pure bad luck that only about 15minutes after he set off it started to rain! Being the real trouper that he is he carried on the hour it took him to get to the top and thankfully only 20mins after getting there the rain stopped at the clouds cleared. “Although it wasn’t the spectacular clear views I had hoped for the views were still stunning and it was a great way to start to my Japanese tramping advent
ures.” Back at the tent by 8am to find me still sleeping (hehehe) we packed everything up and went for a 2 hour walk around some stunningly beautiful volcanic lakes. Needless to say Nathan had had a busy morning and was pretty tired! So instead of battling the traffic on the free highways we decided to splurge out and took the expressway further north to Kumamoto. Normal roads in Japan even the highways have a speed limit of 50kms an hour. Toll roads on the othe
r hand have limits of 80kms... but as there are absolutely no police most people drive at about 140kms... not us... I was a stickler for keeping Nathan at 100kms! Once on the road we decided to change plans slightly and rather than stay in Kumamoto the night we 
went straight through to another of Japan’s massive active volcanoes called Aso-Caldera. This is actually the world’s biggest volcanic crater with complete towns situated inside it... a sight you only understand by seeing it. In the middle are the five ‘new’ peaks that were formed in a huge eruption 20,000 years ago... these are all still fully active and regular throw stuff up in the sky. We camped on the side of this volcano in another pretty good campsite. We got up nice and early the next morning to try and beat the crowds up to the massive crater viewing spot... it was sooooo amazing! We were blown away! I have no idea how to explain what it was like! I don’t think we realised we were actually inside a volcano until we got to the viewing platform and lo
oked down inside! Incredible! Again we took a million photos! This is one of the places we will definitely take any visitors that come here as it’s only about 2 hours from our house and has some good tramping trips around it that Nathan is dying to do!
So that’s our trip... like I said we had the most amazing time! We loved every minute of it! From start to finish it was 950kms... we came in well under budget and have memories that will no doubt last a lifetime!
Next morning we were up and off again by 9am, this time heading inland towards the bottom Prefecture of Kyushu, Kagoshima. However before we’d gone no more than 5 minutes up the road Nathan decided that he’d investigate the increasing rattling sound coming from the engine... just as well he did as turns out there was not one drop of oil left on the dip-stick... OPPS! We quickly headed for the nearest garage praying the engine wouldn’t seize... shock on the mechanic guy’s face when he saw just how lucky we were said it all!
that the area is famous for. There might have been thousands of other people there at the same time... in the blazing heat... but it was still an amazing place to visit. Sakurajima is a massive active volcano that for some strange reason they have built a city next to. When I say that it’s active that’s exactly what I mean... every day it blows out ash and dust which blankets the city and all the near by towns. Rather than the trees being green they were grey with ash as were all the cars, houses, gardens etc. It’s so active in fact that all along the streets there are little concrete ‘volcano shelters’ just in case it one day erupts again. The school kids even have to walk to school wearing hard hat helmets! It was pretty impressive to see it steaming away and a whole city just operating right next to it without a care in the world... not so sure we would be as happy to live right next to one of Japan’s most active volcanoes!
are also different in the fact that they can be made up of land hundreds of kms apart... so this National Park even includes an offshore island. We went straight to the campground in fear we might be out of luck but were lucky enough to get one of the few spots left. The campground was beautiful... in amongst all the trees! We couldn’t get over the number of people there... it’s a really popular place for people to go tramping with a number of walks attracting people from all over Japan. 
The next morning we were up and about early and tucking into the French stick we’d bought the day before... breakfast is hard enough at home here but on-the-go like we were its even harder... hence the bread stick and only the bread stick that morning! Back on the road again by about 9am after another walk along the beach we headed further down the Miyazaki Coastline towards another coastal campsite on the Nichinan coast. We had an amazing day along the way which was by complete fluke... we spotted a sign (in English!!) that said there was a waterfall close by to where we were... after a quick ‘should we, shouldn’t we’ we decided what the heck and followed the signs along yet another long and windy road through beautiful forests and more of rural Japan’s spectacular scenery. Once at the car park we had another ‘should we, shouldn’t we’ discussion about whether or not to change into our walking shoes of stay in our jandals... we opted for jandals... probably not the best choice and headed up the track. It probably took us way longer than it was meant to but we stopped every 10 metres or so to take more photos... it was really beautiful being amongst the bush (was actually quite a lot like home) but was strange not seeing or hearing many birds. Instead I got the fright of my life when a lizard (I’m not afraid to admit it was even a pretty small one) jumped out in front of me... a scream may or may not have escaped my mouth much to Nathan’s hilarity (but only after he’d made sure it wasn’t a snake like my scream my have implied)
. After 40 minutes or so we finally got to what we had walked to see.... a 78m waterfall. It was amazing! We scrambled our way over the riverbed along some precarious beams and got to within metres of it... again a million photos were taken! Sure was good to get out of the car and stretch the legs a bit! After a stop-off at a combini for some rice triangles (another stable food on the trip) we then headed the rest of the way to our campsite. Again we weren’t disappointed by it... another beachside location with more Palm trees and white sand.... paradise! Thankfully we had perfected our skills when it came to asking for a site so it was pretty straight forward. By this time our tummies were telling us we were hungry again and so drive into the little village looking for somewhere to eat... not too many options to choose from but we settled on a little restaurant which was lit up with paper lanterns on the outside. 
When we rolled back the door to the entrance we were met with walls and walls of baseball memorabilia – posters, balls, photos, trophies etc etc. Unfortunately my Japanese reading skills which served me so well the night before were not much use when it came to ordering off this particular menu – it was written in old-school Kanji = impossible to read! The one and only thing I could read was curry so we just went for that. What a fantastic choice it turned out to be! Rather than just getting a curry in a bowl on some rice like you usually would all the veggies and meat came out on their very own gas cooker for us to cook ourselves. Was great fun and tasted delicious! When leaving the chef, his daughter (the waitress) and his wife (also the chef) came out to say goodbye.... we tried talking to them in our limited Japanese to try and figure out what the deal was with all this baseball stuff... from what we could gather one of the local boys from the area had hit the big time by playing for one of Japan’s best teams and has since gone on to play for the Boston Red Sox.... he and several of the team have been to the restaurant to eat hence the many photos of them, autographs etc. The owners loved us so much they even gave us little ice-creams to take away with us. They are just some of the many friendly locals that make our experience here 
so worthwhile.
We've just had 5 days off here in Japan so what better way to make the most of it than driving 1000kms around Kyushu! Thankfully Nathan had spent the week before we left analysing our one and only map (which .is in Japanese) and highlighting the roads we needed to take for the entire trip... it sure made my job a lot easier in directing him through the numerous intersections, rice fields, random little streets, cities, villages and back roads. We sure would make one heck of an Amazing Race team! Our trip down to our first campsite was on the Miyazaki coastline so the scenery along the way was stunning. The water is seriously the most amazing blue here! Much of the route we took involved winding our way in and out of little coves and through tiny little fishing villages. We decided not to take the main road as we wanted to take in as much of rural Japan as we could... a decision we never regretted as it meant we got to see some amazing sights! Much of the drive around the little bays reminded us a lot of the Marlborough Sounds... although the boats couldn’t be further from those seen back at home... no big flashy boats here... rather old and well-used fishing vessels used for hauling in the catch of the da
y. Our ‘off the beaten track’ approach to the trip meant that at one point we were heading towards what we thought was going to be a relatively major road only to discover it was in actual fact the most random windy road that really shouldn’t be considered a road at all. It wound its way through the forest, up and over a big mountain... it was a shame I was sitting on the side of the car that was right next to the big drop down the side of the cliff (with no barriers)... I was terrified and held on tight the entire way! We eventually came out the other side with a sigh of rel
ief and carried on down a ‘normal’ road. Our first campsite for the trip was right next to the beach which was lined with Palm trees and had beautiful white sand. The waves were incredible (hence the 30 or so surfers in the water) with the only downside being it wasn’t a great place for a swim (as Nathan found out after being pummelled by the waved during his short dip). We had a bit of fun trying to communicate with the guy at the camp office... trying to say we had our own tent and only wanted to stay for one night proved trickier than we first thought but we eventually got there in the end. 
A couple of days ago tragedy struck the sea side villa (our house). My dearest stag beetle AKA "Stag" died. We have know idea how or why. On one of my nightly checks and organised play times i discovered him curled in a semi ball like state, initially i thought he was playing games like we always did......not this time. He was truly dead. RIP Stag. You will be missed.
