Aso Volcano Weekend, 2008

Dec 5-7, Weekend 2008 - Nagasaki - Aso - Kyoto

To The Volcano

After the A-bomb tour I did some travel housekeeping on the computer using the hotel internet and then, mid-afternoon Friday went out to look over the Nagasaki port area and Chinatown. The weather had deteriorated. Heavy cold rain swept in from the Korean Strait with lots of wind. But the heaviest rain came in brief bursts so I continued my walk toward the harbor, ducking under cover from time to time. I wandered the docks looking at the few sailing and fishing boats and watched the big ships sail in and out. The entire harbor area seems to be being re-developed. There is an artificial hill viewpoint and an area of open land attractively divided by canals and waterways. Big hawks were soaring low in the icy wind and I was beginning to be worried about being caught in the open as the next group of black clouds approaching from the Straits when I found the art museum and ran inside. By the time I came an hour later out the weather had cleared a bit.

Outside the museum in one of the new canals was a work of art – a row boat blown apart and carefully position among a series of ladders. I took this to allude to the bombing and the ladders of some kind of symbols of ascent. It reminded me of “Cold Dark Matter” at the ICA where an English artist had blown a shed apart and then suspended the bits of carbonized wood as a three-dimensional cube. Since this same piece of art had been used on the set of Dr Atomic, the opera recently staged in NY about Oppenheimer, father of the A-bomb – the parallel was even more striking.



The art museum was bordered by a king of stairway of water with black stone underneath – just a few inches deep.



If you had asked me what I wanted to see on this trip I would have said: “Tokyo, temples and volcanoes”

Saturday I left Nagasaki to move onto the new category – Volcanoes.

In the center of the island of Kyushu there is an ancient volcano which is still active. The caldera (old crater – flat basin surrounded by rock walls) is the largest in the world – some ~ 20 km across. The caldera was the crater some 100,000 years ago, then cooled and flooded to become a lake with 5 new venting volcanoes in the center : Aso-san. The lake drained out through a breach in the wall and the remaining volcanoes are today mountains above a plain of rice paddies and small villages. Only a couple of them are active, but one is accessible (on good days) to the point where you can stare down into a hot green lake - Nakadake.

To get to Aso-san I had to change trains twice, once to get back to the Kyushu mainline running from Hakata to Kagoshima and then again to board the optimistic Cross-Kyushu express which would take me to Aso Station. I planned to stay over in Aso so I would have two shots at getting up to the crater. This is near rural Japan and making reservations and finding what was available here had taken as long as all my other booking put together but in the end I settled on the Asa Villa Park about 10 mins from the station.

It snowed on the way to Aso and turned colder. When I arrived at the station early in the afternoon, the top of the mountain was slipping in and out of cloud – but the sign at the station said the volcano was open so I joined a group Asian tourists in scrambling to put our luggage in lockers and hopping on the next bus up. By the time we reached the summit areas we were in cold fog and blowing snow – visibility zero. I stayed long enough to see crater access was closed and rode the same bus I’d come up in back down. I tried not to think how far I had come to experience an icy fog.

The Aso Villa Park near the Aso station turned out to be what I can only describe as very Japanese. It was a complex of buildings containing all manner of spas and places to get clean and linger in hot water. I would guess it had 500 rooms and almost boardered on being tacky.

Meals were gigantic buffets at set times. Everyone seemed to appear as the doors opened, but as always on this trip, it was all saved by the Japanese. Everyone was so unfailing polite, helpful and friendly - that I completely enjoyed my stay.

I also had a great room. On the 8th floor (this in the middle of a village) I looked out across at my goal – Aso-san and took this picture very late in the afternoon as it began to clear, just before my first all naked onzen bath (Japanese style group soaking bath) with my men fellows.



This photo discreetly cuts out the traffic lights and quick-mart just below – out of sight - still. I left my shades open all night so I could see the mountain dark against the stars.

I had read all about onzen etiquette and knew I would find a male locker room with a place to strip and leave my valuables. I had memorized the kanji characters for ‘men’ – the first is a kind of a six paneled box rushing forward on two strokes. I also knew to mostly undress in my room and don my traditional Japanese robe and tie it with a black belt knotted at the side. At the Aso Villa Park my yukata was a fuchsia color. I slipped on a pair of the slippers also provided and set off downstairs. Because the slippers were too small and slipping off, I could only take very small steps across the main lobby through a swarm of guests arriving late in the afternoon from the tour buses gathering the parking lot.

Trying to forget I was the only one in a fuchsia robe I found the elevator to the third floor of the Scenic Spa wing and then the spa itself. I double, no I triple triple checked I had the male side and entered. It was empty. But here (as I had read) were the baskets to put my remaining clothes and yukata as and behind the doors, adjacent to the hot pools of volcanic water, I found a line of taps and buckets. I stripped and walked to the line of tubs, taps and stools against the wall. The idea is to fill the tub with water, rinse yourself, lather all over, rinse and repeat – no soap must ever get into the onzen bath itself. The water was a brown natural earthy color and on a wall its chemical and therapeutic properties were apparently described in Japanese .

Because of the volcanic activity this region is full of these bath resorts – you can wander from one to another, bathing here, bathing there, whether or not you are a guest.

I was joined by a Japanese man and his son after another 5 minutes. The whole experience was really very relaxing. At the dinner buffet many of the other guests appeared in their yukatas and slippers to eat, with the little woolen capes (also provided in our rooms) draped over their shoulders.

In the morning, the weather had cleared, I could see just one cloud. I hurried down to an early breakfast packed with hotels guests already eating and bathing before bus departures, checked out and took a taxi to the station and then up the mountain.

The Caldera wall from mountain slope

The cab dropped me at the lower parking lot and I began the final ascent when a guard with a gas mask yelled “Stop!”

The crater was closed because of wind direction – poisonous gas was blowing across the rim. Foiled again.

We talked about the areas I could walk (down) and I decided to hike around the plateau area in case the wind shifted later in the morning. After 2 hours of walking through the grasslands, I could see the plume from the peak blowing in the other direction and did finally make it to the edge of the crater – but was never able to take the crater edge, lava field walk I had hoped. That area remained closed.

Volcano from below



The plateau grasslands





The crater mouth at Aso