After a nice relaxing visit at the Omata’s we had one last big stop on our list – hike an active volcano. Mt. Aso, or Aso San, is known for being a temperamental hot spot that has been smoking for years. At its peak, Nakadake crater, there are about 8 inner craters and a small lake of boiling hot, blue water. The crater is off limits but there are zones outside the most toxic spot with a cable car taking visitors to its edge. Unluckily for us, Nakadake was misbehaving as recently as March, causing the closest safe zone (1 KM around the crater) to be closed off. That, combined with super foggy conditions, made our visit to Aso a somewhat disappointing one.

But before leaving the town of Aso however, we got a chance to ride a classical scenic train that wraps around the southern valley of the mountain. Between the quaint towns of Tateno and Takamori, this hour-long “tour” gave us a glimpse at the communities that live so close to this active volcano.

After Aso, Jake and I were starting to feel a little beat, so we booked a room at a much more comfortable hotel than we had been staying in over the last 2 weeks. We took one last Shinkansen train from Kumamoto to Fukuoka the day before leaving Japan. And if we knew how awesome Fukuoka would be we probably would have scheduled more time there!

Fukuoka is the fifth largest city in Japan population-wise, with a unique blend of Japanese and foreign cultures. The city is known for its warmer weather, fantastic ramen, and beautiful women. But what I noticed most about this city was the Korean and broader European influences on their local cuisine. There was more variety and spice in the dishes than anywhere else in Japan. (It did surprise me how much I started to miss Korean and Chinese food…)

While winding down the trip in Fukuoka, Jake and I made sure to get one last important food tasted: Japanese beef. Although Kobe beef is the most famous internationally, Japan has many regions that produce amazing cuts of meat. After getting wicked over-charged at one executive restaurant (they charged $15-40 per 100g and we had to cook it!) we finally found a smaller local establishment run by a hip chef near the clubbing district. We ordered 4 plates of Japanese beef and he cooked them up so perfectly, I don’t think I’ll ever taste beef like that again. ($12 per 100g, cooked, totally worth it.) Along with the beef we ordered a local sake the traditional way – poured in a shot glass in a wooden box, filled to the brim.

And that was how we ended our trip in Japan – food, drinks, and sleep! We had an amazing trip and will definitely have another adventure somewhere else together soon. And as with all of my experiences in Asia I’ll never live life quite the same as before.

Modernity collided peacefully with past twice that day. The first occurred when we took the Shinkansen train lightening speeds over to this majestic, classically Japanese city. The second was when we (finally) found this anachronism we were to call home for the next couple days.

After getting help from a couple of locals, we were able to locate the house we rented by entering the correct padlock code on the old wooden sliding door. (See pics below) When we got in, the first thing Jake (an electrician) noticed was how the electrical wiring was set up. The wires were exposed and running along the walls around the living spaces. It was almost like a race track the way the lines were run from the circuit breaker to the light fixtures and back. This is how the original electrical systems were installed most developed countries.

This house taught us more than a vocational lesson – we got to experience first hand how a typical Japanese might have lived since the 1950s. Aside from the heated toilet seat, not much else was modernized. The tatami floors in the living room and bedroom were a good-enough replacement for chairs and beds. We rolled out our beds at night and rolled them back up in the morning. The walls of the interior rooms were mostly paper and wood. The bedroom wall to the outside was also a kind of sliding door, making the nights a little chillier than we expected. And all sounds from the neighbors’ homes could be heard through the walls without any effort. Finally, the skylights provided enough light to serve as a natural alarm clock in the morning.

There was no escaping this community wrapped around us. For better or worse, we would be inextricably part to the environment we were living in – no TV, no internet, and no privacy. It was in Kyoto that I understood what it means to live peacefully in a community. There was no shutting out your neighbors or the natural world.

My cousin Jake and I have always talked about backpacking and cycling parts of Japan and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Today I start a series of posts about this trip through Japan from the foot of Mt. Aso, Japan’s largest active volcano. (I’ll get to how badass this place is soon). We’ve taken wrong turns (and very right turns!) across this majestic land, but the one thing that has remained consistent is the friendliness and generosity of the Japanese people. They are without a doubt the masters of hospitality.

In the following posts I’ll take you on a journey across this mysterious and majestic archipelago – where the sun rises first every morning and the stars sparkle brightly every night. We started in Tokyo where the neon lights, funky costumes, and glorious Edo past is still visible. Then we’ll walk among the artifacts of previous realms in Kyoto and dance with deer in Japan’s ancient capital of Nara. After that, we’ll visit Japan’s oldest surviving castle in Himeji where the “white heron” was finished being renovated only 2 weeks before we got there! We’ll sip on fine whiskies at the Yamazaki distillery before taking the bullet train (Shinkansen) to Hiroshima. We’ll step upon ground once too radiated by an atomic bomb for anyone to visit and see the horror of those times through the Peace museum. Not far from there we voyage to Miyajima to visit the most frequently photographed landmark – the great floating Torri. And that’s just the first half of our trip!

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High Speed Rail (HSR) is not new to Asia, although the biggest network is now being constructed in China. HSR has been in Asia for decades and is getting upgraded all the time. As you experience various countries across North Asia, it is important to get familiar with these amazing trains and be sure to work them into your trip! The thrill of legally speeding at 340 km/h (210 mph) on the ground is an awesome feeling.

I was lucky enough to experience the early HSR in South Korea (called KTX), which opened just as I arrived there in 2004. It speeds across the country in just under 3 hours. Of course Korea is pretty small, but the KTX beats the 5+ hours car trip plus $60 tolls.

The Shinkansen, in Japan, was opened in 1964 and initially reached speeds of 210 km/h (130 mph). Their fastest Mag-Lev trains reached 581 km/h (361 mph) back in 2003. As a rule of thumb, traveling around Japan is expensive, so this rail option should be planned carefully.

Taiwan has the THSR which basically parallels their older West Coast railway. Somehow they found space on this tiny island to build Inter-County highways, traditional rail, and High Speed Rail! It is a beautiful piece of work which opened in 2007. I tried it once from Kaohsiung (a major southern city) up to Taipei (the capital city). Since there are spots rather frequently, its top speed is limited to 300 km/h (186 mph).

Mainland China’s Railway Highspeed (CRH) is the longest high-speed rail network at over 7,400km (5,000 miles), called “Gao Tie” [Gow Tee-a-uh]. I have been on it twice; once between Zhengzhou-Xi’an, and also between Guangzhou-Wuhan. My recent trip to Hengshan took 3 hours by HSR instead of 8 hours by car. Various corridors of the Chinese CRH system have been completed and the rest of the system will be completed by 2020, bringing the total length up to 25,000 km (16,000 miles). The fastest leg of this whole network is a MagLev train in Shanghai which reaches speeds of 431 km/h (268 mph). I rode this train in 2006 from Pudong airport into the city subway system. It was incredible to say the least!

Not only are the trains amazing, but the new stations being built for their specific use are mind-boggling. Opened in 2010, the Guangzhou South Station is one of the biggest in China and looks like some kind of alien spacecraft! I’ve visited this station three times and still break a sweat when I approach the main entrance. The pictures don’t even begin to describe the feeling inside this place.

High Speed Rail is not the future, but the present. It’s a reality that is sweeping across Asia and changing the speed of life on the ground. With boarding and exiting times much faster than commercial flights, while carrying many more passengers with less energy, it is an intelligent choice for countries which can make the case to its citizens. In countries whose citizens don’t get a vote, this decision comes much easier. And maybe this is a good thing during a time of increased global climate concerns.