熊本城Kumamotojyo

We left Aso on the train, the hotel gave us a ride to the station nearest to the hotel, which would have been only a 5 minute ride if we had gotten off it yesterday. It was a tiny station. The train ride took just about 1 hour to Kumamoto main station, and then we took a taxi to the hotel, not too far away. The hotel however could not find our reservation made on Expedia. So we had to wait (there is a sitting area in the lobby) when they sort it out. They did eventually, and we were able to check in before their regular check in time, so that was good. The rooms were pretty nice too, the hotel seemed to be fairly new. Their internet access was kind of strange, needing an access card on some machine also used to get movies.

We then tried to get some lunch, decided to just eat at the hotel, the selection was limited, but it's something to fill the stomach.
After lunch we took the taxi to Kumamoto castle, which we could glimpse from the window of our rooms.
The castle was reconstructed in concrete in 1960, the outside still looked good and there were several buildings such as smaller watch towers and guard stations were original. There were some school kids (perhaps junior high school age) touring the castle, and they were very naughty with the guard standing at attention at the base floor of the castle, trying to tickle him, and make him move. When dad signaled that he wanted to take a picture of him, he switched the staff he was holding from left to right hand and moved, all the kids went wild.
The foundation walls were impressive and gracefully curved, the grounds of the castle was very nice and peaceful once you get off the main square in front of the castle, there were orchards and some very LARGE and probably old trees. We walked around and had a good time admiring the views of the castle from different directions.
we walked to the busy downtown area southeast of the castle which had many big stores as well as shopping arcades to either side. We found a random restaurant and had dinner there. It was Japanese and the staff spoke limited English, but we managed OK. The hot pot we got there was curry flavored which was the first time I had tasted such. Overall, it was a decent dinner and not very expensive.