This semester in Japanese culture class we went to various interesting places. For me though, there were a couple places that stood out above the rest, so I`m going to talk about them. 菊池渓谷 (Kikuchi Keikoku), which is a beautiful gorge in the Kumamoto countryside, フードパール which is a really neat restaurant in an even neater area outside Kumamoto City.

Kikuchi Keikoku is easily my favourite place that we went for the culture class. It is a spectacularly beautiful gorge in the Kumamoto countryside; I`ve never quite seen anything so beautiful, serene, and wonderful as Kikuchi Gorge. 

The above picture is just one of the beautiful places we saw. It was this fantastic little waterfall we happened upon and stopped at for a bit to take pictures, chat, and cool off.

This picture shows (I think) the beauty of the waterfall and the water`s colour, a almost emerald blue.  Below are a few more photos of the gorge for you to have a look at:

This was another one of the waterfalls we encountered on our hike through the gorge. Iku`s showing it off for us in this picture! J

After we finished our trek through the gorge we ended where we started, and got some delicious grilled chicken and fish at this little shop near the entrance.

Kikuchi Gorge truly was (and still is) a fantastic place and I hope I get the opportunity to return someday.

The next place I want to talk about is called Food Parlour, which is the name of a specific shop that we went to. The actual area it`s located in I`m not sure of the name, but it was equally (if not more) interesting.

This is Food Parlour, where we stopped first. It`s a small restaurant in the area which has various other shops, a small park, and on the day we went a flea market was going on as well. We first sat down and had a awesome meal, and for dessert they had an all-you-can-eat bar, which was fantastic!

After we ate, we went in to the back of the restaurant, which also doubled as a bakery. Turns out they also have a bread factory where they make all of their bread themselves (and also ship it out to various places for sale), so that was pretty neat!

After touring the factory, we had some free time so we all went outside and walked around the flea market for a while, seeing what was for sale as well as buying some stuff.

Overall we had fantastic times at both of these places (and the other ones we went to as well), I`m really glad I had the chance to visit so many wonderful places with my Japanese Culture class.