Castle in Kumamoto

Another great (though somewhat short) ride today!

But first – the things I forgot to mention yesterday.  When we were in Kurokawa, we passed a couple of young women with green things on sticks.  When we got closer, we saw that they were green (unpeeled) fresh cucumbers.  An interesting idea, but not one that I could see catching on at home!  We also decided to try something different for ourselves.  There is a Japanese sweet called dango, made from glutinous rice.  They come on sticks, with 4 spherical sweets per stick.  There were several varieties so we bought 2 different ones to compare.  One was covered with a sweet sticky sauce and the other with a dried unidentified powder.  The sweets are rather chewy and bland.  We’re pleased that we tried them but we won’t be seeking them out again!  The final oversight from yesterday was the I had my first ever drink of sake.  I never quite got around to it on our last visit, so I bought a cute little bottle from the souvenir shop at Mt Aso.  I’ll drink the sake and keep the bottle as a memento.  It has a picture of Kuma-mon, the Kumamoto Prefecture mascot, sitting in an onsen with a towel on his head.  The sake blew the top of my skull off and I can well understand why we’ve seen Japanese men staggering out of bars with rubbery knees at night.

The Australian family that we met last night were amazed that we’re travelling with about 6 kilograms of luggage each.  They had a couple of enormous suitcases which must have been a real pain to lug around.  We farewelled them and the friendly, helpful hostel proprietors and headed off for Kumamoto.

Thanks to John’s prior planning, we avoided the main highway and chose a route that gave us more picture postcard views of quaint villages, rice paddies and vegetable fields.

On the road to Kumamoto

Macabre scarecrows!

The road occasionally went through villages where it narrowed to a single lane, which made me pull in my elbows and knees, before widening again on the other side.  This smaller road took us almost all the way to Kumamoto City so we only had a small amount of city driving before we found our hotel.  We were grateful for this as it was quite hot and humid when we reached the city.

As it was too early to check in, we left the scooters and our luggage at the hotel and went to the Tourist Office to ask about how to find a scooter mechanic.  We’ve been given a possible location on a map so we’ll try that tomorrow.  We then went for a walk in the shopping arcade and had a lovely lunch before heading off to visit Kumamoto Castle.

Kumamoto Castle

View from the top of the main castle building

A budding photographer and his Daddy

The castle is a reconstruction, as the original met the same fate as many other Japanese castles (i.e. it burnt down!).  But it is still a beautiful castle and we enjoyed our visit.  The view of the city from the top was quite impressive.  We met a group of giggling school girls and took photos of each other. 

Happy schoolgirls visiting the castle from their nearby school

In the forecourt of the castle we found some wandering samurai who were there for the purpose of having photos taken with visitors.  So of course we succumbed. 

I wouldn't take on the guy on the right!

Or this one!

By the end of our visit we were feeling quite hot and bedraggled so we plodded back to the hotel for a shower and rest in the airconditioned room.

Then we were off for another walk around the area and dinner.  Italian tonight – at a restaurant called Italian Tomato.  A very nice meal which we partly walked off by window shopping for a while.  There are many bars in the vicinity of the hotel and some posters with pictures of very attractive young women on them so it looks like there’s lots of action for night owls.  We’re just watching an amusing (?) talent show on TV.

We phoned Catherine (who we met in Kurokawa) and will be meeting her to visit an art exhibition tomorrow, after we have – hopefully – got John’s scooter sounding healthy again.