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Woke up to a wet day in Kumamoto, not the most ideal weather considering we were looking forward to seeing some of the best sights of Kyushu today! We went ahead as planned to Aso hoping the weather there is better.
Not unexpectedly, it was grey and rainy in Aso as well. I checked with the information booth on how to go to Aso backpackers and we headed over after locating it on the map. It was really near the station luckily.
While checking in, we spoke to the guy at the reception and he advised us against going up the volcano today since we aren't gonna be able to see the amazing stuffs it is known for. Instead he recommended that we go Kurokawa onsen which was supposed to be tomorrow's plan! I checked with dear and so we took up his advice since dear was ok with it.
We kept our stuffs in the luggage room and went back to the train station, which doubled up as a bus stop as well, to catch the bus to Kurokawa Onsen.Took an hour or so to reach and dear with her umbrella and me in my jacket, we naviagated ourselves to the main information house. There we bought this 1200Yen 3 Onsen pass for any onsen in the area.
We went to the onsens in the following order. 1) Ikoi. 2) Yamamizuki. 3) Yumerindo.
1. Ikoi, This is one of the more recommended onsens according to websites, etc. Dear and me walked into the place and I headed to the mixed room while dear went to the female only room. There was a couple with children drying themselves up and leaving. I was checking out the place when dear appeared and went to get towels. Thanks dear! She came back and we went into the onsen together with our pink and blue towels. Pity no photos! hahahha. Not too bad the place but slightly overrated in our opinion.
2. Yamamuzuki. The highest rated onsen in the area. I suggested to walk there and big mistake! There wasn't any end in sight and lady luck smiled upon us and a Yamamizuki shuttle bus passed by and we tried our luck hitchhiking and it worked! There are only gender separated baths in there. We got our pass chopped and went ahead with our respective baths. The scenery is amazing as the baths are situated right beside a gushing river with trees in a semi autumn/winter phase completing the stunning visuals. The water was very hot at some parts though and it was impossible to go in there. I sneaked in a few shots of the place when everyone left. ;-) After I linked up with dear, we both unanimously agreed that the scenery was one of the best.
3. Yumerindo. A very last minute and rushed decision to go as we only had about an hour left before the last bus comes. It was the nearest onsen to the bus stop and we hurried down the slope and into the onsen. We set a time to meet and went into our respective baths. This is actually a pretty neat place which was well equipped with bathing materials. Not wanting to miss the bus, we didn't take too long and was out in like 20 minutes!
Our lunch provided another "first time" for us as we tried horse meat don, yes, HORSE MEAT don. Not that we wanted but there wasn't much options there and apparently horse meat is the norm in the Aso area. There are even horse sashimi! Didn't really taste weird though and we finished every bit of it. Satisfied!
Caught the last bus and went back to check in and move our stuffs into the room. The recep guy gave us a basic walkthrough of the places around the backpackers and we made our way to this 24hours vending machine food stall cum supermarket. Dear had katsudon and I ordered a beef bowl and it tastes great and the price was really reasonable. We had fun shopping around the supermarket after the meal and saw really large Nissin cup noodle which impressed dear so much! So cute!
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