Today we left the beautiful island of Yakushima :( Our jetfoil back to Kagoshima left at 7 a.m. As we were leaving one of the hotel staff was trying to tell us how to get there. We assured him we had a map and knew which way to go, but he insisted on taking us to the back door (which we had tried ourselves but it was locked) and then gave us directions again, not really letting us leave until he was sure we knew the way. Which we did, he was just kinda making us late for our ferry! It was kind of him to make sure we weren't going to let lost though.
Luckily we made it with about 10 minutes to spare before the ferry left. The ride back to Kagoshima was much smoother (and seemed quicker), but I'm sure the fact it wasn't raining helped a lot with the smoothness.
We were worried we'd have to walk a long time to get some sorta bus to Kagoshima Chuo station, but there was a bus just a 5 minute walk away. Both of us STILL have very sore legs and knees from the other day's hike/climb/tour. It was pretty crowded though as there were lots of school kids around (I'm always so amazed how many kids ARE NOT in a classroom on a weekday around noon). One kid was nice and gave us poor bogged down gaijin his seat. He even insisted using decent English, so I totally jouzu-d his eigo! LOL
When we got to the Kagoshima Chuo station we were able to get our Kyushu 7-day JR Pass that I had reserved online. It took her a strangely long time to do something away from the desk with our passports, but I'm going to guess the copier was on the fritz. I was afraid they were going to deny me because of my dangerous Roger stick I had to throw away at the airport! But no, the lady was really nice and apologetic and gave us our rail pass (they're now just a little green shinkansen-looking ticket instead of a passport-sized cardboard) and printed out our tickets to Aso I also reserved online ahead of time. It all worked so I can confidently say that it's legit!
We hemmed and hawed over what to eat for lunch since we had all of our luggage with us and about an hour until our shinkansen left. We ended up just getting some food from Family Mart and sitting on the steps (there's benches built in, we weren't just getting underfoot) to eat some Fami Chikis. I saved a small onigiri bento for the train. I had a guy try to talk to me while we were in Family Mart but I sadly had to apologize and wakarimasen him. :(
So far the shinkansen rides have been 70% tunnels so the rides haven't been very scenic, and they've also been pretty quick! It took us about an hour to get from Kagoshima to Kumamoto. Kumamoto was also busy with school kids and the bus was packed once again. So packed we missed our stop, but luckily were able to get off at the next one and it didn't make us have to walk too much further to our hotel. There was an old guy sitting on the bus I was standing in front of who touched my right bicep tattoo with the red flowers and said something (sounded positive) so I just smiled and nodded. He offered to hold my small bag for me since I had my big backpack on my front. I made sure to thank him profusely and waved bye-bye to him when we were able to get off the bus.
It's definitely much warmer here in Kumamoto. While we were enjoying 60 degree days in Yakushima, it's in the mid-70s into the 80s here in Kumamoto! Cool forests and ocean breezes has become hot asphalt and tall, concrete buildings. Kumamoto reminds me a little of Osaka.
Our hotel here is the Mitsui Garden Hotel Kumamoto. I made sure to reserve one of their specially themed rooms: the Kumamon Room! Kumamon is this city's mascot, a black bear with red cheeks. He was created in 2010 to promote tourism to Kumamoto and has really helped put this city on the map.
We arrived an hour before check in so we had the hotel store our backpacks and went to sing an hour of karaoke. Jeff sang his emo and I sang my Hirasawa and I'm sure anyone listening was confused. We had some Ichiran for dinner after checking in and then explored the nearby Animate and Lashingbang weeb stores. I bought a doujinshi and Jeff found a The World Ends With You towel. I was drawn to the arcade we had passed near the beginning of the shoutengai and got some fun little gachapons of a Japanese bus stop bell and a mini Japanese Suica IC card reader. Jeff was actually able to win a figurine from a UFO catcher (crane game) at a Taito station! It took a bunch of tries but we put a limit so that we wouldn't spend more than the figurine costs.
After that we both craved sugar, as is our American evening custom, and ducked into a 7-Eleven before heading back to the hotel for an ice cream and a pudding. Hopefully we'll get a good night's sleep and our poor legs will heal up. Otherwise we will be hobbling about on Jeff's birthday tomorrow as we go to visit the volcano Aso!
Jeff? Anything to add about today? Two more hours and you'll be a birthday boy!
Looks like you covered everything. If any readers are feeling generous, I will accept PayPal and Venmo donations for my birthday (@jephlewis on both). Time to get some rest before another long mountainous day.
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