Japan 2023: Kyushu Day Tyushu - Fukuoka to Kagoshima

 Today, I was cornered in a subway on my way to the Fukuoka airport. I just needed to rent a Pocket WiFi, but sometimes, a random English guy sees a patch on your wife's backpack and decides that's a great reason to break one of the cardinal rules of public transport: having a conversation above 50dB. He starts telling us about how Fukuoka is an awful place to start a business, because everyone here either talks in circles and never accomplishes anything, or they're so backwards that they have no idea how business works. Anyway, if you ever need to rent a Nissan at the Fukuoka airport, be sure to ask for the Wrexham Discount or something. I dunno, I'm not your dad. I hope. 

For breakfast, we hit up a local Beef Bowl place (gyukkake in Japanese). Having been Yoshinoya loyalists for more than a decade, we thought this would be a good trip to try the other two to make certain we'd chosen correctly. After our meal at Matsuya, we have so far been proven correct. Yoshinoya is definitely better than Matsuya. We'll see what happens when we get some Sukiya in a few days and we'll keep you all posted. 

Next up was check out of the hotel, and off to the Airport to pick up the WiFi. Herein was the conversation with the guy from England (who was married to a Japanese woman and had lived here for many, many years yet was still kind of a shit towards the country he lived in) and the realization that some folks are just loud. Must be a neurotypical thing, I would never know. 

WiFi acquired, we were off to Hakata station to catch the Shinkansen to Kagoshima. We accidentally paid the extra $10 to get an Express ticket, so it was a very brisk hour and fifteen to go a distance about equal to Cincinnati > Cleveland (or across nearly two Belgiums for our EU audience). It was a very relaxing trip, though the scenery was inconsistent and we were deluged by tunnel-caused ear issues. 

When in Fukuoka, you eat mentaiko! I had some in the ekiben that I bought for the shinkansen. I love the mentaiko onigiri from Family Mart but the real deal is bitter!

At Kagoshima Chuo Station, we dropped off our luggage and headed out to Sengan-en, a temple/gift shop/historical drama filming site. We had to take a bus, like commoners, both to and from the temple. I was not amused, but it could've been worse. It was a nice afternoon for a walk-around. Lots of photos were taken, some of which were presentable:

Thanks Junji Ito, now I can't look at a snail or slug normal again

Warming our hands by the volcano

There's just something about moss and stone that draws Jeff and I 

 

Checking into the hotel was relatively painless. The lobby gave it a very grand look, but the rooms look like something I would've seen back in the trailer park my mom and I lived in back in the mid-80s. Very ancient. 

We checked out the local Book Off (second-hand Media Play, for our fellow olds), grabbed some Udon for dinner, and headed back to the room to shower and soak in the tub. 

All in all, I'd give the day Seven Combinis out of Eleven. 

And now, here's Angie with The Weather. [out-of-tune Indie music starts to play as you reach for the Skip Forward button on your podcast app - yes this is a bad Nightvale joke. Don't worry about it.]

Well I enjoyed our random way to get to Sengan-en with the little train dropping us off at a station straight out of a Mamoru Hosoda anime, and walking down to the bus stop which was inches away from roaring traffic but had a FANTASTIC view of Sakurajima and a little old man fishing.  Jeff doesn't really touch upon Sakurajima. It is the local, and still active, volcano! It's only a little smoky right now but I'm fascinated by it. It's so cool! Sometimes, though, it belches out a lot of smoke and ash, which will rain down on the city here and they have to sweep and clean up so much of it off the streets. It's still there too, brushed to the side of the sidewalk and never completely able to get it all. It crunches like sand and looks a little like asphalt, it's so black!

Looks like that carved wooden figure Grandpa Espelage had with the fishing Chinese-man!

And while our room here isn't very up to date and honestly does remind me of the guest bedroom at Grandma's, this hotel is actually really cool and snazzy! There's about 4 restaurants, it's own conbini, a spa and massage place, a public bath (which I asked the front desk if tattoos were okay, which they aren't, and that is totally daijoubu as I understand the consequences of getting my tattoos), and in a great location with a theater, game place, shopping plaza and restaurants right nearby. And the view from our room is an even better view of the volcano! Unless I have the worst sleep of my life tonight, I'm gonna totally recommend this place for anyone who stays in Kagoshima!

Update: I slept well enough to officially give this hotel 5/5 stars! Here's our room's view.

I came for the tempura and stayed for the zaru soba

That's all I got! Good night! :)

Also, we kept seeing these haws or eagles here and they have that really cool scream that trills or ululates at the end. I can't figure out what it is!

I will have to bird nerd it when I get time to look it up!