Mt. Aso

We took a day trip on a tour from Fukuoka to see this volcanic caldera in Mt. Aso National Park. It's the largest one in Japan. Half the time you can't get up to the rim because the sulfur dioxide concentration is too high.

We wanted to do this on our own but I forgot to renew our international driver's licenses before the trip. It worked out because getting on a bus is a lot easier and probably cheaper, given toll and parking costs.

It's a beautiful area surrounded by dairy and vegetable farms. This is the daiyland of Japan. That volcanic ash makes for fertile soil and there are lots of cows eating grass here. A different kind of grass also grows here. It's the kind that is weaved into tatami mats that are the flooring of traditional tea houses and Ryokan.

After we left the rim of the caldera an alarm went off. Pretty soon people were moving rapidly away. Apparently sensors go off when the air gets too poisonous. We're lucky to have gotten views when we did.もっと詳しく