Tue Sept 27, Sunaburo in Ibusuki

Since I stayed up later, Chika woke up a little early and went for another dip in our private bath.



Then we went to breakfast and had things like onsen tamago, Jersey milk, and namekojiru.



Then we went back and took one last bath in our room before we had to check out. We got ready and packed up, checked out and left our bags with the onsen staff. They drove us to noshiyu onsen to use our last onsen pass. It wasn't a konyoku bath, but they had utaseyu (kind of like a waterfall of warm water that you can sit under) and that was great for my sore back. Then we walked back to the information center and found a place selling shave ice. Then a driver from our onsen brought our bags and drove us to the bus stop in time for our bus back to Aso. We went to a rest stop (michi no eki) close to the Aso train station and got some ice cream made from the milk of a nearby farm that was really good.



From there we took a train back to Kumamoto where we picked up some lunch before catching a shinkansen to Kagoshima. Chika got a French bread bacon potato sandwich and some mentai cheese bread, and I got 2 curry pan. When we got to Kagoshima, we found a nearby Toyoko Inn and left our bags in the room, and quickly took a train for Ibusuki. Then outside the Ibusuki station we had to wait around a half hour for a late bus to take us to Sunamushi Onsen (sand bath).



When we got there, we changed into a yukata that they gave us and walked down to the beach. There was a long stretch of beach with really coarse sand that stayed a consistently hot temperature. We laid down on the sand and some people shoveled sand onto us with just our heads exposed. We stayed there for about 15 to 20 minutes. It was really interesting.

Then we looked around a nearby liquor store for some shouchuu that we could only buy in Kagoshima, but we were running out of time and just went back to our hotel. From there were found a kurobuta shabu shabu place, and had kurobuta kakuni, miso tonkotsu, buta bara aburi, and buta nigiri with some shiso paste. We also tried a couple of local brands of sake / shouchuu to see if we could find something we really liked. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.