Went to visit one of Japan’s still active volcanoes, Mt. Aso. Aso is really famous for farming and for its milk. Most of the milk provided in Kyushu comes from Aso. There’s bottles of milk and milk products for sale, including cheese, cheese cakes and soft cream. Living next to a volcano the land is VERY fertile for farming. The vegetables were not only HUGE, but the same price as what I would find in my regular grocery store. It was very cheap, and sadly my camera could not justify the size properly in my photos.
Mt. Aso
It took us about 20 minutes by car to get up to Mt. Aso’s crater. Still being active, smoke can sometimes be seen leaking out from the magma that’s inside the volcano. After arriving at the parking area there’s a Mt. Aso Museum, along with cafes and other rest-stop shops. Many people were heading out towards the green pasture, there’s a choice of either walking around or going for a horseback ride.
The view from the small hill area reminded me of this horse ranch I use to work at in Golden. Nice, green and peaceful.
The sky was a bit hazy, but we weren’t sure if it was just the weather. If fog was coming in, or the mere fact that this was farm territory, and there were a few farms burning bundles of shrubs somewhere. But then off in the distance I did notice smoke coming out from one of Mt. Aso’s craters, so I was wondering if that might have contributed to the reason?
Aso Farmland
Not sure how to describe this. It’s like a theme park, but then again…not. There’s a petting zoo here, spa, onsen, and a huge family-fun obstacle course that’s built into what seems to be like a crater. This would be a blast if I had kids, and I could watch them run through 36 different obstacles. Aside from that, many of the obstacles were not meant for tall people :(.
I was more intrigued by the design of their “buildings”. While the main house of Aso Farm was nothing special, the hotel rooms and other activity rooms were built in an igloo/hut style. The exterior reminded me of Star Wars, Luke Skywalker’s home town house… but inside – especially the hotels, looked like you stepped into Lord of the Ring’s Hobbiton. And Bilbo Baggins is…somewhere…
Inside one of Aso’s huts, this one is a mushroom farm, and customers can detach the mushrooms they want from the vases they’re growing from. Other huts would sell other things, like herbs & essential oils, etc. There’s a farm market here, where vegetables are huge and cheap. Milk and cheese are also quite cheap as well and they range from locally made, to imported.
one of Aso Farmland’s hut.
BC Roll in Japan 
