Unzen Revisited

While Mom and Dad were here, I was determined to take them to some of the more interesting places I've been. While we didn't do a ton of long range trips, we did make a day trip back to Unzen. Unzen is a tiny city on a mountain. It's known for it's onsens (causing all kinds of linguistic confusion) and for the hot springs bubbling up throughout it in which Christian missionaries were once boiled. The mountain is actually an active volcano that last exploded in the mid-90's... repeatedly. It went off several times over the course of three or four years.
Last time I went, I visited the town with Melanie, but we weren't able to go up the mountain because it was rainy and foggy. However, this time, the weather was perfect, so we took a quick look through town before driving up the tiny little road that offers a closer view of the volcano. Near the top, there was an opportunity to take a cable car even higher to get a closer look around, so up we went:

Clearly, the view from the top was lovely. It's amazing to think that not that long ago, that thing was spitting lava everywhere. I'm glad I got to go back and see it.