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A few days before the winter 2009 holidays, I asked the guys at my lab to suggest me a place to visit. After a few seconds of silence, i asked about volcanoes. Coming from Malaysia, i have no experience about volcanoes or snow and one of my friend recommended Aso-san (Mt. Aso) 阿蘇山, located at Kyushu Prefacture. I can experience my first snow and volcano together!!! It was mind-blowing to find out that Mt Aso is the largest active volcano in Japan with the largest caldera in the world and i get to enjoy the snow on the mountain as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Aso
After only 2 days of planning and preparation and with the help of my kind Japanese friends, my adventure begins!!
My main objective: Aso san. Instead of leaving Osaka with the first train of the day (05:48) and reaching Aso at (23:30+), i decided to put up a night in Hiroshima. Then travel to Aso and stay there for 2 nights. Lastly, before returning, I would go to Beppu and relax with the various onsen and jigoku around the area.
Originally, i planned to stay in the youth hostel in each area that i visited. However, i made some changes for the last destination Beppu
My journey would take 5 days. I would be getting the 18 kippu ticket (11500円 for 5 tickets). I used 3 tickets throughout this trip: Osaka to Hiroshima; Hiroshima to Aso, and Beppu to Osaka. I decided to pay cash for the trip from Aso to Beppu (2070円) to reserve the 2 balance tickets for another trip.
I used http://transit.map.yahoo.co.jp/ to plan my trip. I copied them onto a document and wrote the names of the stations in Roman characters (for me to ask for directions).