Back from hell

No my trip wasn't that bad that I would call it hell, but I did go to a hell. Several even! How funky is that. Anyway, today was our trip to Unzen, this place where they have a real live volcano, about a 2 hour drive from Nagasaki. We went there with about 20 people in total, including 2 teachers. We first went to see the volcano at Nita Pass. The view was really amazing, and I really didn't want to get any closer to a smoking volcano! It last erupted in 1999, killing enough people to make it sound scary... we did some work on it in class, not very pleasant I must say.

Anyway, so we had a look around there, then we continued our journey to Unzen. This is where we went to hell. Well, to a hell. To several hells. Hells are these natural geysers or whatever you want to call them, holes in the ground with boiling water! From the 17th to the 19th century the Japanese boiled Christians in there to make them lose their faith, not necessarily kill them, they just didn't like Christianity at the time. The place stunk like a.. a... I don't know but it smelt BADDDD! Really sickening! Instead of Christians they boil eggs in the hells now, and I swear they forgot about some, that's what it smelt like! Didn't have an egg either, because of the smell. It was really cool to see though, I even dared to stick my hand in the water at some point (where it wasn't boiling, just hot). By this time it was time for lunch, had a quick bite and then it was back in the bus!

Next stop was Michi-no-eki I think... it was this place where you could see all these rooftops... you could only see rooftops because the rest of the houses are underground, covered with lava and ash when the volcano errupted. Slightly freaky!

Next up was Shimabara castle. It looked quite impressive, but wasn't really. Inside was like a musty museum. Well maybe the bits of museum that would normally not have been on display but needed to be stored somewhere. The view was excellent though, too bad about the fence making pretty pictures slightly less pretty. These teachers weren't quite so good at keeping a strict schedule as the Kyoto lot, so we were running late, meaning we didn't have time to go see the Samurai house. No problem, I was knackered. AM knackered. Didn't sleep very well last night, got up early, tramped around stinky places all day, and now I'm going to bed!

Good night!

x Jenn

ps; foto's!