Kumamoto, Saga, and Shimane Prefecture!!

Ok I know its 6 months late.. but here is more info from my trip back in Jan 2011!

Kumamoto Castle! Did a quick day trip to Kumamoto from Fukuoka. It took an hour and 20 minutes from Hakata station. Unfortunately The new Kyushu bullet train was not scheduled to open til march so I could not take ti to kumamoto. Latest bullet train shaves time to like 35 minutes. Anyway Kumamoto castle was a short 20 minute walk from Kumamoto station.  You can take a road trolley but the walk was nice.

What is Kumamoto known for? Why Horse Sushi of course! Tried some and it was pretty good!

Also went to Saga prefecture to get some crab at Takezaki. There three ways you can get it there: Broiled, Baked, and Sushi! Personally I though it was pretty good crab but it wasn't worth the price in my opinion. The best part of the meal in my mind was when the Okami-san of the res truant took the left over parts and made miso soup out of it!  That was good!

Ok speaking of crab, more crab! :) Scrab is really good in the winter time so we went to Tamazukuri Onsen in Shimane prefecture. This was the place where we stayed and it was pretty good! The place is know fpr having the largest outdoor onsen in Japan. I'm not sure if the largest in Japan really is true or not but it was definitely big! had the place all to myself. Its a little embarrassing because people in the hotel can look down onto the hot spring from the room windows but there wasn't that many people staying at the place so it wasn't really an issue I guess.   Ok  back to crab! Had Crab the same way as above but this time I liked it a lot better. The meat was much more easier to get to in the "Echinzen " crabs.