Shirakawa Suigen fountainhead

jasmine drinking the spring water

Well, I accidentally deleted the film I took so it's not easy to see spring water welling up from the bottom of the basin. It looked fantastic; it was like seeing and feeling heartbeat of the earth ,with its blood circulating continuously: Water of life, so to speak. 


The Shirakawa Suigen is within the Mt. Aso region, Kumamoto Prefecture. It lies in the village called Minami Aso Mura (South Aso Village), forming part of the Aso Caldera basin. 


If you have a car, you should go there and try drinking from the fountainhead. It is 16 km away from the active crater of Nakatake (one of the five peaks of the Aso central cone group) and takes about 30 minutes by car from there.


The Aso Caldera basin holds three municipalities: Aso City, Minami Aso Village, and Aso Takamori Town. Come to think of it, it's just amazing to know that people, about 50000, live within the caldera. It's something to see the caldera basin with houses, rice fields, etc. and the enclosing somma altogether from highways up to the Nakatake crater area or several observation spots along the routes.


Aso attracts both domestic and international tourists. Of course I didn't see many from overseas at present when the earthquake, tsunami and leaking radiation scared foreign visitors off from Japan, though Kyushu has practically not been affected. 


You can stay away from coming to Japan for the time being if you do not feel like it and it's quite understandable and reasonable to deduce that it would be better refraining from coming to Japan unless you had to. However, if you happen to live in Japan and have no plan to leave the country, try Kyushu, which is not part of the so called Japan's Golden Tour Route including Tokyo, Nikko, Mt. Fuji, Kanazawa, Takayama, Kyoto, and Nara as its destinations. 


Of course, the Chugoku region including Hiroshima, where I live, gives you a hearty welcome. And the places included in the Golden Route are, in a nutshell, safe and no travel restrictions have been issued by the government and people in this country visit these places or live there. 


The Kyushu Shinkansen super express line has been fully complete this year and operating smoothly, extending the glorious history of comfy and safe running of Shinkansen. The full service started on March 12, the day after the northeastern Japan was ravaged by earthquakes, tsunami and ensuing radiation leak from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1.


It is high time Japan showed its guts and seriously developed sustainable, renewable energy systems for herself and for the whole world. That way, this country will be appreciated and respected highly by the people of the world who have been praying for Japan.

Japan, a country of forest and water