Mount Aso, Aso Park, and Mount Naka

Mount Aso National Park is about 40 miles east of Kumamoto, or about 3 hours when you are caught in traffic. It has one of the largest active volcanos in Japan.

At the peak of Mt. Naka, an active volcano.

It stinks! Smells like sulfur

The symptom of being in bad shape?

Aso Park

The specialty here is baniku (horse meat).

Kumamoto weekend trip

I took a weekend trip to Kumamoto city for the second to last weekend before deploying until the holidays. It's about two hours from Sasebo and the second largest city in Kyushu.

Kumamoto castle

One of the rooms inside the castle

A wider view of the castle

The castle was build on top of a large stone wall. The wall was supposed to prevent enemy troop and ninja attacks. Hard to tell in the photo, but they were high and impressive.

The Kumamoto city arcade. The only arcade I have seen larger than Sasebo's.

Nagasaki festival day .... with fedoras!

Someone was in the bear.

Glover park.

They went a little overboard when they wanted to make this park easy for the elderly. There were escalators and conveyor belts throughout.

This is the only port in Japan to have trading with the Western countries during the Japanese National Isolation of the 17-19th century.

White Linen Night

White Linen and Sunglasses Night at the beer garden on the top floor of the Tamaya Building. Topped off with fireworks hosted by the city.