Day 23

6-5-08

I was expecting today to involve nudity and eating raw horse, though I was sadly dissapointed. Not about the horse part. What I mean to say is that I was informed yesterday that after school today we--myself, Noriko, our friends Yuka and Nana--would be driven to Mt. Aso, a famous volcano, where I was told we would visit the onsen (thus the nudity) and eat of the raw horse (thus the not entirely dissapointed). Whether through a change of plans or simply because of difficulties regarding the understanding of Japanese, the plans were not as previously mentioned, except the part about the volcano.

It was about an hour drive across the island to Mt. Aso, plus driving all the way up it to the crater at the top.

Pretty scenery on the way up.

The scenery was beautiful, pretty rock formations, trees, etc etc. Mt. Aso is still active, so there was steam gushing out next to the opaque turquoise mini-lake in the middle of the crater.

Scenery and mini-lake.

There were also convenient concrete "shelters" in case the mountain erupted, because we all know that in case of volcanic eruption, the best plan of action is to try and prolong your death by hiding in a small concrete box that will in no way protect you from hot burning lava.

I dunno, looks safe to me.

It was still lovely, despite my tiny, tiny fear of dying a horrible burny death.

The sign behind us probably says something like "don't throw yourself into the volcano."

The four of us girls went out for Italian food afterwards, and having not eaten all day, ate my way into a happy cheese-pizza-and-garlic-bread food coma, went home, watched The Perfect Score in honor of getting my SAT scores back, and fell asleep.

It was a good day.