She'll be coming round the mountain on her scooter!

We started today with a visit to the Aso Shrine to see the annual ‘Yabusame’ festival which involves archers on horseback shooting at targets.

Aso Shrine

The event began with a Shinto ritual and then everyone lined the archery course to wait for the archers to begin the competition.  John noticed that something was going on behind us so we went to have a look.  A group of men were having a ‘kind-of’ sumo tournament.  They were just ordinary guys dressed in their ordinary clothes, but each had a strip of cloth, either red or white, tied in sumo wrestler style over the top of his trousers.  They had a great time pushing each other out of the ring.  Lots of laughs all round.

A little dog suitably dressed for the occasion

Japanese Mary Poppins??

The archery was great to watch.  The archers and their horses were elaborately fitted out and we were pleased that we’d found out about the festival.

The archers lining up to receive the blessing from the priest

It also gave me a great opportunity to listen to lots of Japanese language spoken in real-life situations.  I found that I was picking out many bits and pieces of conversation which gave me a confidence boost.  Unfortunately I missed an interesting moment due to a call of nature.  One of the archers misfired and his arrow (which has a rubber stopper on the end) hit a photographer smack in the middle of the forehead.  He fell on his back but then got up and smiled.  He'll probably have a nice bruise by tomorrow, but no great harm was done.  I'll have to time my pitstops better in future.

Mother and baby at the Shrine

As our main plan for today was to visit the Mt Aso volcano, we left the festival and headed up the mountain.  The view was really amazing.  The whole of the Aso area is a giant caldera with a circumference of about 120 kilometres.  There are several peaks within the caldera, but the main one is Nakadake which is the steaming crater visited by most tourists.

Nakadake belching noxious gas

Unfortunately, when we got to the parking lot at the base of the chair lift, we found that the chair lift was not operating due to dangerous gas emissions from the crater.  There is a toll road which allows visitors to go up to a higher car park, but this also closed soon after we arrived.  We were still able to take some photos from afar and ate our late lunch while taking in the fabulous views.

Young lady enjoying the view

We enjoyed the ride back down the mountain and stopped several times to gaze at the view.

Another volcanic peak - a 'classic' volcano shape!

Back at the hostel we had a rest and then ventured into the local supermarket to see what we could find to make for dinner.  We both feel a bit noodled-out and fancied something a bit more familiar.  The supermarket had more fish than I’ve ever seen in one place, so we bought crumbed fish and a few vegetables.  The fresh fruit was very expensive, but we lashed out on one giant apple which we’ll share.  At the upper end of the price scale was a rockmelon which had a 1280 yen ($17.00) price tag!  The kitchen in the hostel is fantastic so we enjoyed cooking our own meal for the first time in a week.


After dinner we took a stroll through the local area which is always an interesting thing to do.  We enjoy looking at people’s houses and businesses.  We spent the rest of the evening sitting in the tatami mat lounge area and I’ve now come to the conclusion that I’m not cut out for sitting on the floor!
Tomorrow we’re off to Kurokawa, a nearby onsen town.  After my efforts sitting on the floor tonight, I’ll probably be needing a good soak in the onsen!