As usual when you follow a tour package, the morning call was 6:30am and departure was 8am. We drove from our hotel at Aojima（青島）to Takachihokyou （高千穂峡）where we saw the beautiful waterfall （真名井の滝）. We had lunch at one of the rustic restaurant near the waterfall and also tried our hands at the "flowing cold noodles"（流しそうめん）. It was real fun. :D We were arranged to sit along a very long bamboo laid at a gradient whereby one end was slightly higher than the other end of a long table. The bamboo had fresh water running down almost like that of a open pipe line. At the top end of the bamboo, the shop attendant started to load noodles in small quantities each time, letting the them flow down the bamboo where we people tried to catch them with our chopsticks. Once the noodles were caught with our chopsticks, we had to dip the noodles into a sauce made with soy sauce, sweet wine and fish stock before we eat them. The noodles were refreshingly delicious and we were all very happy and excited about the game. It's a tradition in Japan to eat noodles like that during summer. They even have a battery operated apparatus on sale at the supermarket for eating flowing noodles at home!
真名井の滝After lunch, we made our way to the volcano of Aso where we saw the world's largest active volcano crater. It had smoke oozing out constantly and we could smell the strong sulfur in the air too. It was really an eye-opening experience for me! At night, we stayed at a resort with very interesting rooms. Every room was a dome structure made of stone with an oculus on top. Mum didn't like the room because she was awoken by the skylight at 5am...
Crater of the volcano of Aso（阿蘇の火山口）
Aso Farm Resort
