Japan Trip '08 - Part 1

Introduction

Here it goes. I've finally got the photos and selected the few hundreds for the first 7 days of the tour. I'll be splitting this tour into multiple parts to blog on. It's tough to one shot do all 21 days, you see... Besides, this is also hard to one shot read all 21 days right? It's for easier digestion. =) I'll split them into appropriate length for reading.

21 days in Japan. Touching down @ 8+am on the 1st day and taking off @ 7+pm on the 21st day. The group consists of 6 members. Me, Zhenwei, Zhengyi, Cuiling, Daji and Zeming(who came in during the 2nd week). The combination might be weird, but oh well, we just happened to come up with this combination. Overall, the combination was actually pretty fun!

Prior to the trip, we had gathered for around 4-5 times, discussing on the itinerary and accommodation of the trip. Everything was planned from scratch, with some help from a sample itinerary from Cui's colleague, Cui's Lonely Planet, Wikitravel, JNTO, and some other websites. The planning was tough. We had no idea how the places were, except to imagine them ourselves from reading the description written from the references.

Over the 21 days, we travelled from the tip of Kyushu, all the way from the west to the east, until Tokyo. Clocking mileage as we travelled, trying to explore as many places as possible within this short 3 weeks. Hey! 3 weeks in Japan is short! We left so much places unexplored. This trip is more like a preview of Japan for all of us. Anyway, this is the movement over the course of 3 weeks.

Fukuoka 福岡 (Day 1,2) -> Miyajima 宮島 (Day 3) -> Okayama 岡山 (Day 4,5) -> Osaka 大阪 (Day 6-8) -> Kanazawa 金沢 (Day 9,10) -> Takayama 高山 (Day 11-13) -> Kawaguchi-Ko 河口湖 (Day 14,15) -> Tokyo 東京 (Day16-21)

Let's begin the journey!

P/S: We took quite a number of jumping photos, some are pretty cool. Also, I was caught digging nose quite a number of times too. NO!! I didn't really dig, my finger was just nicely positioning outside the nostrils. Really. I only pick my nose in private one...


Day 1

Just upon checking out of the immigration gate, we already seemed lost. So we went to the Information Counter and checked how to get out of this airport to get to the nearest subway. Ah! We had to take a shuttle bus to reach the domestic terminal and take the subway outside there. Alright! Let's go!


Another hiccup! We had problem purchasing the ticket. =\ Small issue, solved shortly after that. But felt pai seh by hogging on to the machine for quite a long time. This is very normal. It was only our first day in Japan, so we needed to orient ourselves to the alien environment with their alien machinery. =D Let's skip the journey to our hostel.

Tada~ We arrived at our hostel safely! Luckily one of the rooms was already available, so we chucked all our barang barang in that room (which was the ladies' room). We were supposed to move out immediately to catch the train we planned to take. But.... we were quite shagged out by the 7hrs flight and a long walking distance. Ahhhh.. Let's just take a short break eh?

That short break in the end became a long one. Leaving less time for the next destination. But who can resist rest time... Never mind, it's just day 1. Let's not be harsh on our bodies. =)

After that break, we headed hastily over to the train station. Searching nearby for some cheap restaurant for lunch, and we found a ramen restaurant with enticing menu. Man! Menu can't be trusted. In fact, this ramen was one of the worst we had in the entire trip. After lunch, we resumed our plan and took the train to Beppu 別府. The train ride was around 2+hrs. Sleep.........

Here's some introductions on Beppu. Beppu is one of the Great Three Hot Springs of Japan. Beppu has many natural onsen (hot bath) and hot springs which are purely for viewing only. Those are too hot to bathe in. You can cook with the steam from the hot springs. The top sight of Beppu are the ten hells (地獄 Jigoku). Each of this hell has a theme, and thus, earned them the titles such as Sea Hell, Mud Hell, etc.


We reach Beppu @ around 4pm, which was 2-3hrs behind schedule. We were supposed to visit 6 of the hells, but those places closed at 5pm. We went over to the Information Counter to confirm the closing time. Great. We only had 1 hour, impossible! Considered ourselves lucky if we could even visit just one of them.


Don't know if it's a blessing or what. Just outside the exit of the train station, a taxi uncle approached us. Offering us a tour package, bringing us to 2 of the hells, another 2 viewing spots and any dropping point. Due to the lack of time to explore Beppu, we decided to take up the offer. But luckily we took up the offer, the viewing spots that the uncle brought us to, those places are unreachable unless you drive. It was definitely worth the money, though we had to fork out a bit more than what we planned. The uncle also kindly showed us the best photo-taking spots at each of the places and acted as our stand-in photographer. Nice!


End of the tour, the time was already 6+pm. Our dropping point was at Takegawara Spa. The interesting about this place is its hot sand bath. They bury you with the hot sand for ten minutes or so. A nice and relaxing feeling. The hot sand bath costs 1000 yen. Take note, no towel is provided. We paid another 250 yen for a thin and non-absorbent towel. After the hot sand bath, we cleaned ourselves off and dipped in the hot bath. Ahhhhhhh... Life was great~

After the bath, it was time for dinner. Shops in Beppu closed early. Apparently it's not so much of a night town, er..... Unless you turn into the other area. Oh.. Wikitravel stated this - "Beppu is also known as the Las Vegas of Japan, a reference more to its extensive sex industry than gambling." Of course, we didn't venture into that area. We were just looking for food.


Found this pretty atas looking restaurant. But wow... The price was pretty good. Sat, ordered, chatted, ate, chatted, paid, back to the train station. Took the 9+pm train and reached back Fukuoka @ 11pm+. A long day for the start. =\

Day 2

During our stay in Fukuoka, there was a on-going festival - Yamakasa Festival. It's a festival where people carry their float and run down the streets, parading and racing. But the climax, where the racing and parading happen, was some time later in the month. Our stay in Fukuoka only allowed us to see them exhibiting their floats in the street. So right in the morning, we started off walking to one of the shrines in Fukuoka. It was supposed to be the main shrine for this festival. After visiting the shrine, we walked to the Tenjin train station.


Throughout the whole walking journey, we spotted numerous floats displayed on the street. Those floats were really nice. The figures on the floats were well elaborated. Too bad we didn't know the story behind, or else we would be able to appreciate it more.

Our next plan for the day was to go to Dazaifu 大宰府. First stop @ Dazaifu was to visit the Tenmangu Shrine. Quoted from Wikitravel - "This shrine is popular with students as it is dedicated to Sugawara-no-Michizane who was deified as Temman Tenjin or Kanko, the god of culture and scholars." Wait... None of us are studying anymore! Never mind.


The streeting leading to the shrine has many shops selling a plum-paste pastry called umegaimochi. But seriously, we couldn't really taste the plum in it. It was more like red-bean paste. Or did they bought the wrong one? Along the street, I came across my first contact with Kitaro. Kitaro is a manga/anime/movie, which is now very popular in Japan. Looks cute. Google for it and see. Lunch was also at that street.

During the shrine visit, Daji tried to toss the coins into the donation box (that's what you do at a shrine), but he missed. All of us ran away and acted as if we didn't know him. I mean, at that distance and he also can miss. Woot~


After that, we visited the Kyushu National Museum. The museum was new. And nice looking. Good scenery around it too. But, it ranked first in my "Top Boring Visits in Japan". =\ I think maybe I'm not a lover of museums. What to do, Zy and Cui fell asleep while resting on the benches right in the middle of the museum. =


Okay, out of Dazaifu. It's not a night town too. Best to get out of there before sun set. Reached back Tenjin. Oh wow! Night stalls set up along one of the shopping arcades. Bought takoyaki to snack on. DELICIOUS!!! Oh yeah, the girls bought Yukata too. It was for the Gion festival of Kyoto which we would be visiting @ Day 15.

Day 3


Okay, I should be able to squeeze day 3 into this post. Day 3 should be short. The day started early with us moving to the train station at 6+am in the morning. Our first Shinkansen ride. The bullet train is really faaaaaaassssssssssssssssssssssssssst. Transiting @ Hiroshima and switched over to another normal train to reach Miyajima-guchi to take ferry down to Miyajima. Everyone missed the takoyaki last night, so we bought some outside the train station there. The previous night's tasted better. =~( Nevertheless, I love takoyaki!

Upon reaching Miyajima, we checked out the information counter to see if there was any transportation that we can take to reach our ryokan, Jukeiso. Apparently, there's free shuttle service to take us there, but it's only available after 3pm, which is the official check-in time. It was only 10+am, so we put our barang barang at the coin-lockers and began our tour for Miyajima.


Right outside the ferry terminal, we spotted lots of deers walking around freely. Lots of them. LOTS! And they were attracted to anything that dangle. Clothes, papers, bags, etc. Anything they see dangling, they will attempt to chew it off. But they look cute~

In Miyajima, their local speciality food product is manju 饅頭 in a maple leaf shape. Manju, though chinese writing is man tou, is not like chinese man tou. It's like... chiffon cake texture? Hmmmm... Can't find something to relate to. Anyway, it's a kind of pastry with fillings in it. Lots of variety - red bean, chocolate, custard cream, etc. All taste good. It seems like oyster is another food speciality there. Many restaurants selling grilled oysters. Looks good, but I don't really enjoy eating oysters. =)

Miyajima has one main attraction that everyone must go. It's the Itsukushima 厳島 Shrine. It has a big big red shrine gate out in the sea. It was really a beautiful sight, when it's high tide. During low tide, it didn't look that impressive.


Visited the shrine, walked around the surrounding, saw the pagoda. Time for lunch! Curry rice for the guys and doria/gratin for the ladies. Both were super nice! The doria/gratin is something like baked rice. Well, it was my first time coming across this name. Btw, it was the best we had tried over the 21 days. Sometimes crowds and big names might not mean anything about the food. That cafe restaurant, that we had our lunch at, served better food.

After lunch , we headed back to the station to retrieve our bags and take the free shuttle to our ryokan. The ryokan had good services and the staffs were very friendly. We had a nice welcome and showed to our room. As we had already explored most part of the island, left the trekking (we have no time to do that) and cable car up the mountain (it was down for maintenance -GREAT), we stayed in the room waiting for dinner time.

Here's the part why I like the staff there. At around 4+pm, one of the staff came up and checked on us. Why? She informed us that the Itsukushima Shrine is closing soon, along with some other places. Generally, most places close @ 5pm in Japan, btw. She was afraid we were slacking in the room too long and forgot about the time. That was really nice of them to be so thoughtful. Of course, we told her we had already visited the areas and thanked her for informing us. =)


Dinner time came, and time to make our way down towards the shopping arcade. Ah! What we didn't expect was that all restaurants were already closed! Hmmmmmm... Either the people there had early dinner, or they don't serve dinner at all. A manju shop was still opened, so we went in bought some of them to try later at night and for the breakfast next morning.

Lucky for us, there was one restaurant which was still opened. Now I know why most of the ryokans in Miyajima had dinner and breakfast package. It's almost impossible to find dinner in Miyajima! Alright! This place had my favourite yakisoba! Woot~


After dinner, we went back to the Tori Gate and took many stupid photos. The whole place was almost ours, very quiet. Then came a group of other tourists. We had enough photo taking, so it's time we gave up the area and went back home. Cui suggested catching the sunrise the next morning. So yeah, everyone gotta wake up early the next day. Sleep...

To be continued...