Tokyo!!

We have arrived in Tokyo and are both enjoying ourselves in this amazing city. But before we write about our Tokyo adventures I (Liam) will update the blog.

On our second full day in Nagasaki we visited this little Peace Museum which has been set up by volunteers and advocated on-going peace. Hannah brought a post card and one of the volunteers gave us both a War-Brush (to sweep away wars) and Peace-Box (a small origami cube). This was also a free museum and one which is not mentioned in the guide books but worth a visit. Before we found the museum we walked to Hollande Slope, this was the area where the Europeans used to live and contains European style buildings. I really enjoyed Nagasaki, finding it a humbling place to be, but also interesting, I recommend the hostel we stayed at.

From Nagasaki we headed to Kumamoto for one night. We visited the castle and strolled around the streets enjoying the Japanese atmosphere. We also found our favourite cheap ticket vending machine restaurant. These places are really cheap to eat at and the food is pretty good. You get a good bowl full of food and also miso soup for free. We have found this chain in a few towns and cities now and keep looking for them.

We took the train the following day to Beppu past some amazing mountains and landscapes. Beppu is famous for its spa`s and is also a seaside resort. I was not impressed with Beppu and thought it was a little shabby for Japan. With our full day we headed out to Mount Aso which was about 2 hours away by train towards Kumamoto. Mount Aso is Japan`s and one of the worlds largest calderas, which is also an active volcano. You take a cable car to the crater and walk around while the green sulphur lake in the crater steams, it was a magnificant sight and very impressive. We took many pictures of the crater and surrounding landscapes.

From Beppu we took the train to Tokyo, the journey in total was around 5 hours and the trains were packed because of the end of the Oban festival (where relatives return to their homes and celebrate the rising of their deceased relative`s spirits) but we were lucky to get seats and was able to eat our lunch. I was really looking forward to getting to Tokyo and was not disappointed when we arrived. From Tokyo station we took a further train and metro and arrived at Asakusa and was confronted by torrential rain and after a few mishaps, we finally arrived at our hostel.