yamaonna

So today we travelled from Nagasaki to Kumamoto. There are a few different ways to make this trip, but we decided to catch the train to Shimabara so we could see the castle there (there’s a picture below). The Shimabara castle isn’t the original, but contained some interesting displays on Christians in Kyushu and the local fedual families.
At the castle we stopped for lunch and I had a style of udon I had never seen before – maruten udon (pictured below). It was yummy, but as my mother commented, it was kinda like seafood extender. We also tried Rokube manju, a black steamed cake with sweet potato inside. It’s a Shimabara speciality and was quite yummy.
After the castle we had to catch a ferry to Kumamoto, where we will spend the rest of the trip. It doesn’t sound like we did much today, but we did spent over 3 hours travelling.
Hopefully we will have good weather for the last couple of days, but it seems we have the threat of snow. Fingers
crossed that if it does snow it won’t interfer with our plans!