Aso

The weather was great, and the views of Mount Aso and Takachiho while boating were truly beautiful. Plus, our professional guide, Jimmy Yanagi, was witty and humorous. Highly recommended!

After booking your trip, you'll receive a voucher, which will be a PDF. The PDF will detail the boarding times, itinerary, tickets, and important notes (in Chinese). The places that felt a bit rushed were the Aso Mt. Terminal and the Aso Crater. According to the itinerary, upon arriving at Terminal, you have to queue for the bus, and since the bus arrives quickly, there's no time to eat ice cream or browse souvenir shops. The time spent at the Aso Crater is also a bit short, especially if you want to take plenty of photos and walk all the trails, which requires more time. Back at Terminal, I remember the bus departs in 15 minutes, so if you need to use the restroom, eat ice cream, or browse the souvenir shops, there's definitely not enough time. Lunch was at Douce Nucca, next to the Kusanagi Aso Volcano Museum. The hamburger steak was delicious! You'll have three hours here, which is plenty of time. Finally, you return to Aso Station and can leisurely shop at the souvenir shops nearby. I stop at Aso Station for about 30 minutes in the morning to see what I want to buy, and then come back in the afternoon to buy it. The pudding is delicious! The coffee jelly is very coffee-flavored.

Although the zoo is not big, and it was raining that day, it was a bit inconvenient to move around, but it was also because there were not many people, it felt very relaxing, and it was rare to be able to feed the penguins very close, holding the bear for photos, not crowded at all!

The meeting point at Lowson outside the Hakata Chikushi exit is convenient and easy to find. Our enthusiastic guide, Mr. Mao, provided a detailed explanation in both English and Chinese, including the tour duration, how long to stay at each attraction, and what to see and buy. However, we were a little disappointed that access to the Aso crater was restricted by a safety cordon, preventing us from getting too close. Nevertheless, the snowscape was beautiful, with frost-covered trees. It had snowed overnight, with about 5-7 centimeters of snow accumulated. The white snow, dotted with grass roots and icy trees, cast a stunningly beautiful shadow on the gray-green forest. Mr. Mao said it was a rare sight and well worth the visit.

The weather was great, the tour guide was friendly, and even the driver was very kind. Although it was a pity that we couldn't go to the volcano viewing platform due to wind direction, I still really enjoyed and appreciated the day trip.