Surprises

Unfortunately no cardreader this time, so pictures will come later, if we find a computer that does have one. Just a short update about the last week. I forgot what I wrote about plans (they changed quite often), so I'll just tell where we went.

A long train trip (more than 5 hours) brought us to Kyushu, the southernmost big island of Japan (there are many small ones even more southern). Some highlights from the last few days:

- An evening in a sake place, together with the two owners and a frequent guest. We had to try from a lot of bottles, one of them a 'secret bottle' of the frequent guest. Interesting! ;) We even got a present: handmade sake cups. Great :) We considered staying one day more in Fukuoka and eating there, but in the end we decided to move on to Ebino kogen, for hiking and camping.

- We ended up in Aso, since that was a place we could reach before dark. The camping that we found after a short walk turned out to be closed, but after some discussion, the owner permitted us to stay for one night. In the end, we were lucky to be the only ones, since it started raining in the middle of the night and water came from all sides. We moved our matrasses (and everything else) to the cooking- and washing up place, were we continued the night. The tent was also very much a seasonal tent... A night we will remember ;)

- In the morning we started off for mount Aso, to the rim of the vulcanic crater that is still alive. It was a pity that we had to take the street (hiking road was closed, end of the season...) , but it was really nice weather and after the top we could take a hiking path to another village, Takamoto. This was a beautiful walk! Mountains everywhere, really. The vulcano that we saw is located, together with 4 other mountains, in a very broad crater, in which we were still walking. It were the last hours of sun, only paths that you cannot find back after a year if they won't be maintained (cut grass). I hope for a cardreader in the next computer :) When we asked the way to a hostel in Takamoto, two women were so kind to walk us there. The owner was already in her pyjamas (it seemed), but she still let us in. People are so friendly and helpful here (maybe I said that before... ;))

And now we are in Nagasaki, in a very friendly hostel. We decided to stay here for some days. Both Akiko and Thierry have gone back to Utrecht. Guys, are you ok? How were your last days and the travel back home?

We heard Sinterklaas arrived last weekend! Hopefully he thought about you all (all who are living in the Netherlands, not that we don't want him to think about others... hmm, complicated)
Take care everybody!