Hoshino Resorts KAI Unzen
We started the day with a lazy morning enjoying the onsen in our room more. It overlooked some volcanic spring fields and wooded hillsides with nice autumn colours.
Breakfast was traditional Japanese style
Unzen Onsen
After checking out of the hotel late morning, we went for a walk around the small town. The main attraction were the walking trails leading through the steamy hot spring fields (or jigoku, hells, that they are known) that supply all the hotels with their hot spring water.
Oshidorino Pond
Next we drove a couple of minutes out of the town and walked around Oshidorino pond, where we were able to look back over to the town and our hotel.
To the side of the main path was a torii gate and path up the hillside. It led to an old buddha carving in the rocks.
Koi no oyogu machi street
After exploring Unzen, it was time to get back on the road and continue our journey to a different area of Kyushu, Kumamoto. To break up the journey we stopped in the city of Shimabara and spent the afternoon walking around a number of different tourist spots.
First was Koi no oyogu machi street, a quiet street with spring fed ponds and water channels with lots of koi fish living in them
We stopped at Shimeiso and had green tea overlooking their garden and spring water pond
Samurai residence street
We then walked to a small samurai district in amongst the modern city, with the old canal street and number of preserved houses from different ranks of samurai that you can freely walk around.
Shimabara Castle
Our walk then took us past the large reconstruction of Shimabara Castle. It was a bit too late to go inside, but we still had a nice view of the keep.
Ferry to Kummamoto
From Shimabara, we took a car ferry over to Kumamoto. It was a 30min boat trip that saved about 3 hours of driving. By the time we got off the ferry it was dark so we just stopped at a couple of shops and a CoCo Curry for dinner, before driving another hour out of the city to the Mount Aso area, where we would be staying for the night in a very new hotel.
