Day 6 Japan - more Miyajima and back to Hiroshima

28 August
Day 6 Japan

I woke up reasonably early this morning and went to check out the Torii gate and temple before the tourists arrived.

It was low tide again so it was basically the same as last night.

The temple was pretty nice.  Very open layout to take advantage of the location in the bay and quite understated.  No big gaudy Buddha statues or anything.  It was just a nice pleasant temple.

They were doing a roaring trade with blessing trinkets.  They must get all their funding from people who buy a piece of material that's supposed to help them with hair loss or something.

I did a little walk through the other end of town past the temple then took off up to the rope way (I.e. Cable car) to go up the mountain on the island.  There was a temple I wanted to visit so I thought I'd combine the rope way to the top with a walk down the other side back to the temple.

The walk up to the rope way was nice.  I found a little side path along a river and followed that for as long as I could.  I actually got some use out of my filter water bottle!  I filled up in the creek and the water was cold and tasty with no stomach rumblings later.

The process of getting on the cable car was very tedious.  Walk up the hill a bit to the thing.  Buy a ticket.  Stand in a queue with everyone sweating their balls off.  Then you get herded into a couple of different cable cars to go up the mountain.  Whatever - got there and I was the tallest so I could see everything on the way.

Unfortunately it was an overcast morning when I got to the lookout so there really wasn't much to see.  So I followed the signs to the temple I wanted to see and started on a 30 minute uphill walk (bastard!) before I could start going down.  I wasn't the slowest which was great!

Finally started down and it turned out to be about a 90 minute walk down the hill - concrete steps all the way.  Glad I decided not to try walking up from the bottom.  Sort of twisted my ankle on the way down but managed to walk it off.  There were some signs along the way saying there was a dangerous Japanese snake in this area and to be careful.  Pfft.  I'm from Australia.

Finally got down to the bottom and it was a beautiful temple.  There was a big damn and then a big waterway and wall along the side of the temple so I could use my water filter again.

It was a nice temple.  Plenty of stairs (obviously) and a bunch of nice buildings.  Lots of statues everywhere (Buddha and other).  Turns out the temple was about 10 minutes walk from the other temple I visited that morning and I didn't really need to walk 90 minutes to get there but I had fun.

It was about high tide when I was finished so I went and had a look at the water temple and Torii gate for the last time.

Grabbed my bag from the hostel then took off back to Hiroshima.

There was a Japanese drum group at the train station while waiting for the Hiroshima train.  They looked like they were high school girls and they were pretty awesome!  In costume, really loud and a frenetic pace.  Some of the drummers seemed really into it and others not so much.  There was also a tv crew and a fancy train on the other platform who all packed up and left once the drummers had finished.  Clearly a segment for some kind of tourist show.  Must have been a very fancy train because all these Japanese people kept looking in the window and taking selfies in front of it.

Back to Hiroshima and I checked into my hostel.  It was a pretty good hostel.  Nice and clean with yet another Japanese person who had lived in Australia for a while.  This time the Gold Coast I think.

After all my walking that day and having done the memorial stuff already all I really felt like doing was having a couple of beers.  So I went to a little craft beer place not far from the hostel.  Place was called Raku and it was owned by an American guy.  They only served Japanese craft beer.  I don't remember what I had but they were OK.  They were mostly beer styles I didn't recognise or beers with Japanese ingredients in them.  A regular at the bar brought in some snacks he got from Korea so he shared those around which was nice.  Some sort of odd flavoured kitkat and something else.  I also had a really nice bar snack but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.  Something odd or I wouldn't have ordered it.

The beer was OK but I didn't really like the venue.  Not that friendly.

After that I headed for food at this place called Okonomi-moru.  It's basically a multi-story food court where every place sells Okonomiyaki.  The idea is that each one will prepare it slightly differently and you just go in and sit down at the place you like the look of.  I randomly chose the third floor and ended up at a place where an old dude nearly pounced on me when I walked in.

I sat down and ordered as best I could from the terrible English menu then ordered a large beer which turned out to be 1L of Kirin in a glass stein.  Heavy mofo.  So the dude started cooking my pancake and then a younger guy took over so the owner could talk to his other customers.  The guy had (shocker) spent some time in Australia so he could speak a bit of broken English.  We had a stilted conversation and a couple of laughs so it was fun.

Eventually I got my pancake and started to eat it while watching some terrible reality tv show they had on at the bar.  Some kind of relationship thing where the really dopey looking guy used to be a Japanese pop star who became a farmer and his wife who I assume was a groupie and missed the party life.  Scintillating stuff.  I think he tried to make a comeback as a hip hop star because they showed him wearing a stupid outfit in a recording studio at the end.

Now Hiroshima Okonomiyaki is different to other Okonomiyaki apparently.  They use noodles in it here while they don't do that elsewhere.  I dunno.  This was the first real one I'd had in Japan and it was really tasty.  I reckon it's super bad for you but delicious comfort food.  I finished my pancake and beer, bid farewell to my new friend and took off back towards the hostel.

On the way home I stopped in at a cheapo store and picked up a messenger bag.  I hate to admit it here but Maile was right.  While shopping in Brisbane a couple of days before I left I picked up this little backpack that folds down smaller than an apple.

She's all "wouldn't you prefer a messenger bag like the one you carry around all the time?".
And I'm like "no - a backpack will be more convenient!".

Well she was right.  I hate that backpack.  I wanted my ikea bag back.  So I got this bag and I already like it better.

Because I was a little tipsy I picked up some donuts from a store on the way back to the hostel.  They were terrible.

Met a newcomer in my room at the hostel ... An Irishman called Jake (I think).  He ran into some folks who were drinking on the roof so we got some drinks and headed up there.  A Canadian couple were there and we joined them.  Then we were joined by another Australian and an Englishman.  Eventually we got kicked off the roof and kept drinking in the common room til the wee hours.  It was fun though I think there were a couple of small hangovers the next day.

Day 5 Japan - a little bad and a little good

27 August
Day 5 Japan

OK so today's plan was to get to Miyajima island for an overnight stay.  Originally I was going to stay in Hiroshima last night then go to Miyajima but the weekend shenanigans put the kibosh on that.

Since Miyajima is most easily accessed via Hiroshima I decided to do a half day there first and go to Miyajima in the afternoon.  So I got the train from Fukuoka to Hiroshima and found somewhere to stash my luggage.

Kat had suggested that I do the Hiroshima A-bomb stuff before doing something awesome since it was going to be depressing so I've decided to knock all that stuff off today then do the cool Miyajima stay tonight.

I jumped on the bus from the train station and headed for the A-bomb dome.  This is the last surviving building from the A-bomb in Hiroshima and they've made a big memorial of it.  It's situated in a park with a bunch of memorial stuff around it.  It was a fantastic day and it was actually a really beautiful sight if you don't think about the reason the building is there.

I was surprised how much of it was left standing if that's the only one that has survived.  As expected a bunch of tourists around but not so many to make it annoying.  There was a cat standing (well sleeping) guard under the main dome area.  No doubt a nice sunbeam there it tried to cross.  #garfield

Walked around, took a few snaps then walked through the Peace Park towards the memorial museum.  The park is really nice.  Full of memorials from other countries  promoting peace and abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.  Some of them are good, some are a bit shit.  Tourists particularly seemed to like the bells.  There was a queue for one that was dedicated to children who died in the blast.  I just went to one that wasn't about children (because I don't like children) and walked straight up to it.  The noise was much more sonorous than the children one so I felt vindicated.

The main museum was actually closed when I arrived because they were doing renovations or maintenance or something so they only had a different wing open.  It seemed to have been closed for a while so I'm sure they moved all the good exhibits over to this building and I don't think I missed anything too big.

You can tell they have spent a lot of money on this exhibit.  Particularly compared to the Nagasaki museum.  Flash building with a lot of technology used.  There were tons of tourists there as well.  At this big curved wall with a timeline the tourists were stacked 5 deep trying to read it and take photos.

So it's possible that I'm emotionally disabled but I didn't come out of the museum feeling anything in particular.  It was interesting but not upsetting.  It's a horrible thing that happened and I hope it's never repeated (shouldn't need to be) but I kind of felt the museum was a bit sterile.  Was talking to a chick in a hostel a couple of days later and she said she cried going through the museum.  I don't get it.

I preferred the Nagasaki museum.  Definitely not as much money spent on it and definitely smaller but I felt it was a bit more personal and told the story in a more meaningful way.

OK.  So the "depressing" stuff over with and I made my way back to the train station to grab my bag and head to Miyajima.

The train ride down was easy.  Stopped in at the tourist information centre to see what they had about Miyajima and the dude working there was yet another Japanese person to have lived in Australia.  This guy spent 3 years in Sydney or Melbourne working for a business importing Japanese stuff.  He seemed to really enjoy talking to an Aussie and gave me a few recommendations for the island that turned out to be wrong.

One of those things was that you won't be able to buy beer on the island after about 6pm so I got a few beers at the 711 on the mainland.  What a load of BS.  There was beer everywhere including beer vending machines.

Speaking of - the beer I bought was from the Miyajima island brewery.  I had 3 different beers which I can't remember right now and they were all alright.  No bad ones.  I think I liked the wheat beer the most.

The ferry over to the island only took 10 minutes.  Kind of like the Coochimudlo ferry in SE Queensland.

Miyajima is one of the top 3 scenic spots in Japan (who voted on this?) I believe because of the massive Torii gate in the harbour there.  You get a reasonable view of the gate as you're going in but I was going to get much closer later.  There are a few oyster farms or something in the harbour as well so it was a reasonably interesting 10 minutes.

One of the things Miyajima is famous for is the wild deer roaming around the place.  It took all of 30 seconds on the island for a deer to walk in front of me.  I think they are wild only in the sense that they are not formal pets of people.  They basically roam around and try to steal food from idiot tourists despite all the signs around telling you not to feed them.

The hostel on the island was really nice.  It was a nearly new facility and everything was in great condition.  There were 2 Japanese girls at reception who seemed to have a great time while checking me in but I never figured out why.  Inside joke I guess.  Hostel was pretty empty ... only me and a Spanish couple in our 8 person dorm room so we had heaps of room.

It was pretty hot so I wanted to go for a swim in the water but both the hostel people and the Spanish couple advised against it.  Apparently the water is not particularly clean around the island due to all the boats and the fireworks festival that happened a couple of days before.

So I trundled down to check out the Torii gate since that's the main attraction of the island.  Walked through "town" on the way and most of the shops were closed or closing since most of the day-trippers were leaving by the time I arrived.  That's one of the good things about overnighting at places like this.  You get the attractions mostly to yourself at night and early morning.

The Torii gate was pretty nice I will admit.  It's a really scenic spot and gate looks great in the water against the backdrop of the mountains behind it.  Still plenty of people around though since sunset and low tide were coming.

At low tide you can walk out to the gate and get photos underneath it and from the other side.  So I spent a surprisingly entertaining hour or two wandering around the Torii gate getting photos from various angles with various levels of water and sun.  Took a few photos for couples or groups.  Surprising how few offered to return the favour.

The fact that I was wading out away from the islands to get some shots from the mainland angle seemed to amuse a few people.  The water was really shallow though ... barely up to my knees despite being a hundred metres out.  Not sure why more people weren't doing it.  The gate was a different colour from that side.  Noobs.

There was also a temple there near the gate on pylons and it looks a bit different between low and high tides.  So I wandered around there a bit as well.  I'd go back in the morning to check them both out at high tide.

Wandered back to the hostel for a shower then out for some dinner.

Ended up at one of the only places in town left open at 9pm and they were making a killing.  I had a really nice (and expensive) meal before heading back to torii gate to have a look at it by night.

They light it up with big spotlights til about 11 and it was a really nice view.  Until the tourist boats came in.  These boats would cruise up and go around the gate then go through and park directly under the gate so tourists could take selfies then cruise around a bit longer before being replaced by a different boat.  Very annoying for those of us on the shore waiting to get a decent photo.  Eventually got a couple and then went back to bed.

Spoke to the Spaniards a bit later and they said it was completely deserted after 10pm when they went and the water was so calm the reflections were great.

Back in business!

I'm back in business. Got a new cable from an electronics store in Nagoya between trains and the iPad is now charging. Lots of travel today so hopefully some updates ready for tonight.

Still alive! IPad not.

I'm still alive. My iPad won't charge and I'm trying to find a new cable for it.

Plenty of posts to come as soon as I get it sorted.

Day 4 Japan - funky Fukuoka

26 August
Day 4 Japan

I slept really well in my bed.  It was great.  I even rolled over and went back to sleep after getting up for a pee.  Very unusual for me.

I woke again and couldn't get back to sleep so I went for another soak in the onsen.  As promised the baths had switched so I got to see the other one.  I preferred the second one.  I don't know why it was just a more pleasant environment I thought.

And it started to rain lightly while I was in there so that really added to the experience.

Eventually though I had to get out and go pack and leave my nice little retreat.  I was very happy with my decision to stay here.  While it would be nice to do this in winter (which I'm sure I'll do in Scandinavia later this year) the heat during summer wasn't really an issue.

It really started to bucket down when I was leaving so I got a cab back to the train station and went to Fukuoka for my unplanned night.  The train ride down the mountain was just as scenic as the ride up.  And my Shinkansen rides to Fukuoka were very nice as well.  Japan (like Mongolia) continues to deliver beautiful scenery.

I got to Fukuoka in the afternoon sometime and didn't really feel like being a tourist so after checking in I went in search of beer!  Fukuoka is a pretty big city so they had plenty of craft beer options and I had a couple of bars in mind.

That said - they had this pretty famous Ramen place at the train station that I was determined to try.  Fukuoka Ramen is different in some way to other ramen.  It took me ages to find the place in the labyrinth that is the underground tunnel system in Japan but eventually I got there.

You order your ramen via a vending machine at the front and it spits out a ticket.  Then someone shows you to a 1 person cubicle (think a library) where you fill out a form customising your ramen.  Noodle firmness, soup strength etc...  You then hand this sheet to a person behind a curtain who you can't see and they run off and make it then bring it back when it's ready.  They then close the curtain and you're left in your little booth to scarf your ramen as messily as you choose.  Interesting dining experience!

The ramen itself was really excellent but so far most things have been excellent so I'm not surprised at this point.  I'm not sure what made this different to other ramens but I'm sure it's a very key part of the ramen experience.

The hostel I stayed at was really nice!  It was almost brand new and it was in a multi-storey building.  The dorm rooms were huge ... something like 40 beds in a dorm and each bed was a little box with a curtain.  Almost a capsule hotel.  I was a bit worried with 40 people that it would be noisy but I forgot I was in Japan.  It was so quiet except for the snorer below me.

After check-in and a quick shower I headed out looking for beer.

On the way I heard some shitty music being played down a street so I went down to check it out. I stumbled onto the last hour or so of a street party in downtown Fukuoka.  They had 2 stages going (one with a boy band (the shitty music) and the other with a DJ), a bunch of vendors (food, drink, other junk) and a shitload of people.  One of the stalls was selling craft beer from the area and the dude zeroed in on me as I was walking past and asked if I wanted one.  It must have been tattooed on my head ;]. Of course I had a beer (a Hefeweizen) and it was actually pretty good.

Love this drinking in this street thing in Japan.

I walked the length of the street party then headed back and watched the DJ for a while.  I only stopped because he was playing some really really terrible music and I wanted to take a recording of it.  But after a couple of minutes he transitioned into some decent music and started to get a crowd to gather.  I ended up watching the set until it finished and he had really built up a crowd and people were starting to really get into it.  He needed another half hour I reckon and he would have started a rave on the street.

Once he finished and my beer was empty I took off and went in search of a bar.  I went to a place called Craft Beer Creek I think.  Odd place for a bar.  Was in some high rise building on the third floor.  You'd have to be looking for it to find it.

It was actually a pretty cool little bar.  Room for maybe 6 people at the bar (I got the last spot) and half a dozen small tables.  They had about 12 taps and maybe 20 bottles with a mix of Japanese and international beers.  And they had an English version of a Japanese craft beer industry magazine.

So I grabbed the magazine, some cow liver thing for a snack and worked my way through a couple of beers over a couple of hours.  It was great and just my kinda thing.  I have found so far that Japanese craft beer is probably more expensive than Australia ... even the local stuff.

After that I got a bus back to the hostel and did some blog updates and bookings for the next couple of days.  They were playing Ocean's 11 (the remake) in the hostel lobby in Japanese with English subtitles so that was amusing while I was typing away.  I'd had a good day and I kind of wish I'd spent a couple of days in Fukuoka instead of Kumamoto. Next time!

Day 3 Japan - hot springs!

25 August
Day 3 Japan

Good thing I had only planned 2 nights in Kumamoto!  The day trip to Nagasaki was nice so I don't regret that but Kumamoto itself was a bit of a bust due to my poor planning.  That's fine though ... I wanted to be fluid and flexible on the trip so that's working already.

One of the things on my list for Japan is to go to an onsen ... a hot spring.  There's an onsen town called Yufuin not too far from Kumamoto and in the general direction I'm heading so that's good.  So I've booked a night at an onsen hotel there and we'll see how it goes.  Sitting in a hot spring on a hot summer's night ... I amaze myself at my idiocy sometimes.

Anyway.  The second night on the tatami wasn't as bad as the first in that I didn't injure myself any further.  It was difficult finding a comfortable position though.  I survived and I think I'm probably going to avoid tatami floors from now on.

So I'm off to a town called Beppu after check out today.  This is also a hot spring town  and they have turned a bunch of them into tourist attractions called the Beppu Hells.  Basically the silly Japanese of ages past decided the hot springs were possessed by demons or something so they became known as the hells.  As we all know the tourism industry loves this sort of shit so a tourist attraction grew out of it.

Basically there's 7 or 8 hot springs around Beppu that have various attractions related to them and the local buses go past them all.  So on the way to Yufuin I stopped in here for a couple of hours to take a look.

I believe the properties of the interesting ones are natural but they definitely have a man made feel to them.  When I was there it really felt like someone had just dodged up a tourist attraction.

Anyway. I didn't go to them all because some of them seemed pretty boring.  The first one was bubbling mud with a slight sulphur smell to it.  The next one had cobalt blue water in the spring.  There was one with crocodiles, one with different mud, a red one and one that was supposed to shoot out water quite regularly (with no indication of whether regular was every 5 minutes or every 5 hours).

The interesting ones (that I went to) were the bubbling mud which was aesthetically pleasing to me, the cobalt blue one and the red one.  The others I either didn't go to or was not interested enough to take a photo of anything.  Google if you're interested.

You could also eat eggs and other things that had been boiled or cooked using the springs or steam from the springs.  I think people were mostly doing this so they could sit in the shade or the airconditioning while they got over the heat.

Because of the hot springs the whole area was sweltering.  Add the steam and heat from the springs to the general heat and humidity of summer and everyone was a sweaty meatball.

So I finished up my hot spring jaunt and got on a local train to Yufuin.  The train ride was absolutely gorgeous.  It was an old single-car train that went up this mountainous path towards the town.  Beautiful scenery the whole way.  I stood at the front of the carriage for an hour just watching the train hurtle up the track.  Fantastic.

Arriving at Yufuin was really lovely as well.  It's a small town that's basically built around the onsen tourist industry and they have tried to maintain a traditional Japanese feel to it.  They've done a really good job as the town is really quite beautiful.  All the stores are basically restaurants or souvenir type stuff to cater for the tourists which is a bit of a downer but it's still a nice place.

I got a cab from the train station to the hotel I was staying at (actual hotel not a hostel!) which was a nice change to walking up hills.  The cab was pretty awesome.  Oldish car with a driver who is immaculately dressed in his taxi uniform.  The passenger door opens for you after the driver pulls a lever inside.  The seats inside are covered in lace or another while material.  Really nice ride and it wasn't too expensive.

Got to the hotel and checked in and the woman at the desk gave me a large sized yukata (Japanese robe) for wearing to the spring later.  Thankfully I looked it up later and sizing is based on height not girth ... but I'm still pretty sure it was a fat man robe.  Whatever ... I'm a fat man so it would have been entirely appropriate.

I'm not sure if I offended them during check-in by electing not to eat at the hotel but she seemed surprised and a bit unsure.  It kind of felt like a BnB which is run solely by the husband and wife team at the desk.  But I really wanted to walk down into town for dinner and have a look around so that's what I did.

My room was pretty nice.  I've been in much nicer hotels but I have been camping and hostelling for the last 6 weeks so this was pure luxury.  King sized bed, private bathroom, balcony with a view.  Lovely.

I wandered down into town and it was about a 15 minute walk.  As I said the town itself was nice.  Not big but one of those towns which is basically a strip mall.  One or two roads that have all the shops and businesses on them.  I was starting to worry that there wouldn't be anything open for dinner after a while but I ran into a nice little cluster of restaurants to choose from.

After see sawing between a couple (I literally walked back and forth between the two for about 5 minutes) I eventually settled on one.  Turned out to be a yakitori place!  I love yakitori!  On the downside the menu was completely in Japanese.  Thankfully one of the owners spoke some English and gave me a brief rundown of the various sections of the menu.

I actually managed pretty well once I remembered Google Translate lets you take a photo something and it will find the words on the photo and translate for you.  That worked really well once I turned the menu the right way up   #rollseyes #stupidwesterner

I had a bunch of really nice stuff and one thing that I just didn't really like at all.  It's called natto.  I'll let you google it but it's basically fermented beans or something and it had a weird stringy substance holding the beans together that sort of stretched out forever when you tried to eat it (kind of like mozzarella).  This was not a taste experience I particularly enjoyed but I did finish the bowl.  I don't even know how to describe it.

Natto

After dinner I headed back to the hotel to get in the onsen!

I look damn sexy in my yukata don't you think?

So I put that on, put my thongs on (none of the slippers in Japan fit), grabbed my little basket for my towel and other sundries (soap, washcloth, phone, key) and trundled on down to reception so they could show me where the onsen was.  I have to give someone credit because the dude at reception did not laugh when he saw me in my yukata.

Either I did an amazing job putting it on and I looked great (option 1) or the dude did a stellar job not laughing his head off (option 2).  I personally choose to go for option 1.

He lead me to the onsen and warned me very strenuously to turn RIGHT not LEFT.  Right was the men's onsen tonight and left was the women's onsen.  Never the twain shall meet at this facility (unless you hire the private one for some sexy times).  The baths would switch in the morning.

I had read up on my onsen rules before arriving so I basically knew what to do but did kind of dread it a little bit.  I'm a westerner with body image issues.  I'm not particularly keen on or used to the idea of public nudity and the onsen thing is basically bathing naked with a bunch of other people.

So I got in there, took off my gear and went to the bathing room to shower and clean myself.  You sit on a little stool in a locker room type scenario in front of a shower, soap yourself up thoroughly then rinse yourself off so you're lovely and clean before you get in the pool.  Thankfully I was alone for this process because the stool was very low.

After that you hold your washcloth over your junk and head into the onsen.  I put the washcloth on my head like the guides said but eventually I felt like a dickhead and just stuck it on the rocks at the side.

The onsen itself was absolutely beautiful.  A small pool (maybe 3 metres by 3 metres) surrounded by rocks and trees and with a gazebo over the top of most of it.  There was pleasant music playing over the speakers and you could hear the sound of water flowing into the pool to keep it topped up and hot.  The floor of the pool was a bunch of small smooth rocks and the water was clear and about 40 degrees Celsius I think.  Once I got over the whole naked in a pool thing it was absolutely relaxing.

A Japanese guy joined me for a few minutes but we each kept to our end of the pool as is default with the guy code (do anything you can to avoid seeing each other's junk in a shared space).  He only stayed for about 5 minutes though.  I think I stayed in the pool for about 20 minutes until I couldn't stand the heat any longer.  The hot water did do a great job for my sore muscles from my defeat at the hands of the tatami mat.

I hopped back out, did a quick rinse off in the shower area, put my gear back on and headed back to my room.

Where I struggled for the next hour to find somewhere to stay for the next night.  Apparently the Japanese really love to go away for the weekend!  I had intended to go stay in Hiroshima the following night but I wasn't able to find a hotel room on an aggregator site for less than about $300 a night.  Booking.com kept saying "Hiroshima is 97% booked out for these dates.  Try another date."  The other places I checked on Honshu.

So eventually I started looking on Kyushu and I got a room at a hostel in Fukuoka which is where I first entered Japan.  Kind of annoying since I didn't really have anything I wanted to do there but it was a reasonably priced bed and it would do!

And then I stretched out on my fantastic bed and went to sleep.