“Please visit Miyazaki again,” a sign reads at the entrance to the prefecture’s last tunnel burrowing through the Kyushu Mountain Range on Route 219. When you emerge on the other side, another one is waiting to greet you: “Welcome to Kumamoto!” It’s as if the passageway is a portal, transporting you to another world. And that’s exactly what Hitoyoshi feels…
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“You ate what?” Maria-san asked with surprise. “Wild boar and deer.” She scrunched up her nose in disgust, “Urgh…really?” “Yeah, it was delicious!” “Oh no,” she frowned unconvinced, “I’ve never tried it.” Maria is the co-owner-co-chef of one of my favourite restaurants in Miyazaki, which made her reaction that much more amusing. It’s not an uncommon one in Japan though,…
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In Japan, you’d be hard-pressed to find a city or town that doesn’t have at least one onsen (温泉). Thanks to abundant geothermal activity on the archipelago, there are thousands of these natural hot springs scattered throughout each of the prefectures. Not to be confused with bathhouses, or sentō, in which heated tap water is used, onsen must contain at…
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I have never seen an active volcano in real life before, so when John reminded me that there was one just a 15 minute ferry ride away from where we would be spending the weekend, of course we had to go. Andrea had invited us to her birthday party in Kagoshima City on the Saturday night, so John flew down early…
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