Luna Observatory Auberge Mori No Atelier

“Sincere Concern for Guests”

We pulled up late (at 6.15pm) on 15 Apr 2015 to this beautiful, charming auberge. We had been in Kirishima, and the main Kyushu highway was damaged and unpassable due to the 6.4 quake that had struck Kumamoto on the evening of 14 Apr. Thinking that all the following shocks thereafter would be gentl… more

We pulled up late (at 6.15pm) on 15 Apr 2015 to this beautiful, charming auberge. We had been in Kirishima, and the main Kyushu highway was damaged and unpassable due to the 6.4 quake that had struck Kumamoto on the evening of 14 Apr. Thinking that all the following shocks thereafter would be gentler aftershocks, my husband decided to go ahead with the drive to Minami Aso. We had felt gentler tremors only in Kirishima, but Minami Aso is right by the epicenter of the quake. It took us 6hrs to make the what would normally have been 2hr journey. We were with another friend who was travelling to Japan for the first time, and she was keen for us to continue on the rest of the holiday as planned. The service at the Observatory was superb. We were served a fabulous dinner, and there were no other guests there, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The onsen was fabulous too, but the highlight of the whole stay were the telescopes! Takano-san's entire presentation of what could be viewed that night was brilliant. He played the character of a kind but slightly eccentric nerdy star-gazer guy perfectly, and was consistently a great host too. We went to bed that night glad to finally rest after a long day journeying. We were, however, woken up at 1.25am by very violent shaking. We were completely freaked out, not having ever experienced an earthquake ever in our lives. After what felt like a lifetime of rattling, fearful that the whole building might collapse on us, the shaking finally stopped. We tried to turn on the lights but they were out. We grabbed our phones and used the light to try to look around. Just then, there was a knock on the door. The waiter had shown up with some torches to bring us outside. Downstairs, there was broken glass everywhere. Everything had fallen off the walls/shelves/tables. We were taken outside to an open field. The shaking continued every few minutes or so. It was about 7 degrees and cold. Takano-san arrived and we were then taken to a parked car out in a more open field. The heat was on in the car, they had brought us blankets, drinks and warmer parkas, and they even turned on the radio for updates (though hubby and I understand only very basic japanese). We spent the rest of the night in the car, with Takano-san and the waiter guy in another car. The ground continued to rumble and there were 40-something aftershocks after that 7.8 quake at 1.25am. When day broke and the aftershocks had longer breaks in between, the staff went back into the auberge and told us to wait in the car while they checked out the situation. I had to use the bathroom very badly, so I couldn't wait for them to come back and get us. When we went up to the building they had cleaned up significantly, and had even made us up a tatami room on the ground floor to rest! We deeply appreciated the gesture, but were really too shaken by then to stay indoor. They even made us breakfast (without electricity too)! We were anxious to leave and get to Fukuoka, but Takano-san told us to wait. We only understood why later - the main bridge leading to Minami Aso had fallen down, and there were landslides and cracked roads everywhere. When we did finally leave, Takano-san and the owner would not take our payment, because they "could not provide a proper experience" for us. But they had evacuated us, and had done their best to make sure we were still comfortable even in the direst of circumstances! We felt like we had been burdens through the entire ordeal - no electricity, no food, and supplies would be hard to get for a while. We've donated the cost of our stay (and more) to the earthquake relief effort for Kumamoto. Minami Aso is beautiful, I wish we could have seen more of it, and I highly recommend the Luna Observatory to everyone.

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