Rolling mists fill the valley as we descend from Mount Aso to Kurokawa Onsen, a riverside town in the depths of Kumamoto Prefecture. The trees that border the road stand tall and straight, and the cool air is redolent with the fragrant smell of damp cedar. Higher up the slopes, the canopy is tinged red, the first signs of transition from summer to autumn.
Twenty minutes outside of Kurokawa Onsen, on the edge of the town of Oguni, is Soba Kaido road, nicknamed for the noodle shops positioned every hundred meters or so alongside its course. Our group stops at Kagoan, a 100-year-old farmhouse that has been refurbished as a soba restaurant; its mossy roof and thick wooden beams hint at its age.
