Takachiho Gorge, Japan--Day 3

The third day, Brian and I awoke early and walked down to the train station in Kumamoto, once again toting our giant ruck sacks. We had been given a list of buses, trains and several maps translated into English by a hotel front dest employee. We were determined to make it to the center of Kyushu island to see Takachiho gorge. We took a three hour bus ride from Kumamoto to Takachiho and then had to walk for forty minutes to get from the tiny bus station to the gorge. Yes, we could have taken a taxi, but we are way too cheap for that!

What we found when we got to the bottom of the gorge was incredible. Brian and I are definitely eco tourists. We love adventure in the great outdoors and seeing beautiful landmarks. We had hoped to canoe in the river, but the place was closed, so we spent most of the time hiking along the gorge and up the mountainside.

We found a noodle house in the little tourist shops that we considered eating at, but it was especially pricey. We had to take a picture because we'd never seen anything like it. There is a little Japanese lady that stands behind the little house and shoots noodles down the bamboo shoot to the customers. They quickly scoop up the wet noodles with their chopsticks and place them in their bowls of broth.

During girls' camp, I think when I fell out of the car into the mud, I sprained my ankle. It has been bothering me off and on for awile, but on this trip it was especially bad and the only thing I could do was pop Tylenol and buy athletic tape to stabilize it. I had to walk/hike everywhere and carry an especially heavy bag all over, so my only choice was to suck it up and not take breaks. . . because then the likelihood of getting back up was a lot less.

At the top of a very steep hike we found a Shinto temple built among tall redwood pines.

After several hours of hiking, we caught the one bus leaving town and traveled to Takamori station where we caught a cute little old-fashioned train that traveled through the countryside of the Aso region. We then caught several other trains, including one wrong one that took us an hour in the wrong direction, and finally made it to our Ryokan (pronounces yokahn) at 9 pm that night. That's when our true Japanese cultural experience began.