Kyushu

Today I just barely turned in my taxes! I almost forgot to mail it honesty lmao. Since I work freelance I have to do them myself. It's interesting here that companies usually file your taxes for you, when I try to ask someone a question about them they don't even know how it's done! In the US everyone usually does their taxes themselves unless they hire a company to do it for them.

I'm enjoying some down time at home but I miss traveling! Usually at this point I would be getting ready for a trip during Golden Week but I doubt we will be able to do much this year. Instead I'll talk about what I did last year! I went to Kyushu and I absolutely loved it! One of the prettiest place I've been to in Japan and the weather was perfect.

The cover photo is from Kikuchi Gorge, you can walk a trail there that takes about half an hour or one that takes one hour. We decided to do the shorter one and take our time. It felt so peaceful walking through the forest and everything was so green! The water was incredibly blue too. I highly recommend visiting there!

We drove up to Mt. Asao to take a look at the volcano next. On the way up we saw this interesting shaped hill. It was so relaxing to drive through the mountainside that we never wanted to leave.

After that we stayed at a very cute little hotel and ate irori, or 囲炉裏, at a restaurant down the road. I'd never had to it before so it was a really great experience for me, and everything was delicious!

Next, of course we had to head over to Beppu and thankfully we could enjoy more beautiful weather. We relaxed in some onsen and only went to two of the seven hells. Beppu was pretty crowded for Golden Week, but nothing like what I'd seen in Tokyo or Kansai during GW. It seems like a good choice for GW if you want to go some place that won't be crazy (very) crowded. Traffic was good as well.

Last thing we did on our trip was taking the ropeway up to the top of Mt. Tsurigi. The views were stunning and all the fresh air felt good. We climbed what felt like a bazillion steps to a viewpoint but it was worth the work! It felt like there was nothing around us, just wide open air. It's also featured in my blog's cover photo!

My Kyushu trip is one of my favorite trips I've taken in Japan! I can't believe I don't hear more people talking about it all the time. It's a really gorgeous place with great atmosphere. All the food was good, too! I hope I can go again sometime and do some of the things in the southern part of the island.