In the land of volcanos

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes! :) :) :)

I thought, being over in Japan, I'd get to celebrate for 40 hours, with the 16 hour timezone change. But, we were at a friends place the day before and he whipped us up a monster birthday dinner (complete with champagne and presents!) the night before. So really, I got almost 3 days of birthday! Super special!

I won't have too much time to write, since Nic and I just used up our internet time chatting / miming to a bunch of high school girls here for a badminton tourney.

The last week...

It was good to get out of the hostel / ryokan / guesthouse circuit for a few days and spend time with a friend we haven't seen since he moved and started a family here many years ago. We got first class treatment, with a personal tour guide around Fukuoka, home cooked meals, local advice, and answers to all the questions that have been accumulating through the travels.

We headed out the morning of my birthday, with the first stop being the beach for breakfast (pearing through the fog, looking for Korea). Then we were off to Nagasaki.

I thought Nagasaki would be a depressing way to spend a birthday, but was surprised at how vibrant the city was. The town was beautiful to wander through (both during the day, and wee hours of the morning!) and loved the look of the city at night from the hills around it.

That night, we created our own adventure... starting in the heart of town, trying to find the local hang outs. We had many successful venues... with the last being an eclectic mix of locals that were overly welcome of us and kept us having a blast on the dance floor until the wee hours of the morning. I'm pretty sure it was the owner of the joint, with the long dreadlocks, ensuring everyone was having a good time.

From there, we weaved our way South. The town of Aso (yes, the jokes started pretty early on that one...) was neat with it's volcano, but it "wasn't behaving" (too much gas - how about that for Mt. Aso...) so we couldn't get all the way up to the rim.

We had better luck with another volcano on Sakurajima... while cruising around the base of the volcano (also conviniently the perimeter of the island!), it started spewing ash. By the time we hopped aboard the ferry to get back to the mainland, we were covered! Not exactly what we were looking for, but definitely more exciting!

We also got out to a National Park and did some hiking around extinct volcanos. It was super beautiful, hiking through the trees and seeing bright green / turquoise lakes in volcano craters. I found Japan's answer to the grouse grind, and cruised up it in record time in order to snap a few pics from the top and make it back to catch the last bus out!

Speaking of pics... haven't had too much success with getting more pictures posted. I'll be trying again at the next computer...

And with that, it looks like Nic and I ARE in fact continuing our trip. We did some quick research on changing our flights and coming back early when it sounded like our ferry tomorrow was on a collision course with the eye of a typhoon. But, it now looks to be heading further North (sorry Venny... I think it's aiming at you now in Tokyo!).

Here's to brighter skies ahead...