Kikuchi Gorge and a View of Aso

Kumamoto is surrounded by lots of, as the Japanese say, "beautiful nature." Just like any relatively non-famous city, the locals know of spectacular spots to visit. Before we left for America, one last day trip with Grandpa Minoru and Grandma Chieko took us to two of Kumamoto's most well-known sites.

This first is Kikuchi Gorge, which illustrates vividly the Japanese use of language. To me, "gorge" means a long, deep, canyon-like hole, a la the Royal Gorge in Colorado. Kikuchi Gorge is more of a majestic, beautiful babbling brook with some small waterfalls, flowing through a hilly forest. Regardless, this place is a fantastic place to go, offering four distinctly different environments in each season.
I have seen pictures of the white-coated gorge during a snowy winter time, as well as the green growth during spring. Mark and I conquered some of the small cliffs here by jumping off and into the FRIGID waters during the summer months. And on this trip, we saw the very best of Kikuchi Gorge in the fall. The trees provided a golden tunnel, and the fierce November wind relentlessly coated the ground with leaves, making the rocks and ground around the river golden-brown as well.

From Kikuchi Gorge, we drove toward Aso. Mount Aso (you can read about this on wikipedia) is somewhat well-known, with an active volcano that was featured as a villain's lair in the James Bond film, "Goldeneye." Several of my good friends lived in the area while I was teaching, so I came here often. We did not have much time on this day, so my father-in-law simply took us to the coolest lookout point in the area. From this overlook, we could see the entire caldera, which was formed between 90,000 and 300,000 years ago.

What a Magic Trick: Levitating Hiroki over the caldera