4 hours and 51 minutes to our destination of Washington D.C. airport. Hey, it ain't Chicago. Although, after going through security at another airport and just connecting at Chicago with at least two hours until the connecting flight has been okay. It's also saved the day being the airport we have to fly to Japan when our other flights have been canceled on us (2012 we missed the flight to LAX due to a delay at CVG with engine trouble AND 2023's flight to Houston being canceled due to weather).
But we got there, we made it to Japan! We got to see a part of Japan we had never explored before, moving up from beginner mode to intermediate by picking Kyushu (beginner mode is the Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka loop trip often favored by first timers to Japan, and there's a reason: it's all easily accessible by train, the JR passes are made more for the Tohoku region, and English is more widely available on signs, in stores, and on menus).
Kyushu was definitely a much more nature-intense Japan trip. So many green mountains and trees and rivers! That hike in Yakushima was the most intense hike I have ever taken in my life! Being able to hike up the mountain at Fushimi Inari was just a walk in the park (ha!) compared to this climb!
I think that's what brought about any of the downsides to this trip: inability to find the right info or not completely or well-translated websites allowing me to fully research what to expect. I do NOT consider that trail to the top of Taiko Iwa to be easy, as the Y.E.S. website alluded. I also was unable to research our trip to Aso very well, leaving it to be a lot of waiting around for an infrequent bus and any points of interest not being within walking distance.
Which brings me to point two: okay, okay, I admit it, the Redditors are correct when they say that renting a car will allow you better and quicker access and unlock a lot more of Kyushu than what the train lines access. There, happy? But, I still absolutely refuse to rent a car and drive around on the "other side of the road" with limited knowledge of Japanese. Yes, Google maps exists, but I don't know if I can retrain my brain enough to safely drive in Japan.
With all that said about the limits and downside to our trip, what about some upsides and observations?
First of all, let's hand out some awards: First award goes to Agoda, for being a legit website (that I think is a part of booking.com) and a third party hotel booking service that came through for us. No horror stories here! The deals were real and we got to stay in some really amazing hotels and ryokans for really good prices! We were expected and our rooms were ready and really really nice! My favorite is definitely our last one, the Solaria Hotel Nishitetsu. It was FANCY, had the best shower and bathroom and AC unit, hands down, and the beds were fine and the location was pretty great. Our ryokan in Beppu, the Seaside hotel Mimatsu Ootei, comes in at a close second because they were tattoo friendly with their public onsens and the fact we had our own private onsen in our room that overlooked the ocean made it easy to soak at least twice a day LOL! If you're looking for a great Japanese ryokan experience that is foreigner friendly with traditional breakfasts and a kaiseki dinner, this is a great way to try it out!
Second award goes to Y.E.S. Yakushima for being a fantastic tour and booking service for people like us who don't wanna rent cars but still want to experience this fantastical island of old sugi trees and moss. They did it all: booked the ryokan, the ferry tickets and also picked us up, drove us around, and dropped us back off at the hotel. Both guides were great, Masashi was super friendly and funny, Steve (the boss) was very knowledgeable and accommodating and put up very well with the chatter of 6 Ohioans in one car.
Third award goes to Kuroneko-san of Yamato delivery and the amazing service that is luggage forwarding, or takkyubin! You saved our backs as we had one less city we had to carry our bags to and from and now I'm kinda thinking we should just always use it LOL! It's cheap too! It was about 1500 yen per backpack (carry on size) and while we gave them two full days to get it to Fukuoka from Kumamoto, I think that short a trip can get done in one. Either way, it was amazing and I'm glad it also worked flawlessly!
And lastly, our major award of platinum goes to Tonya of the United counter at CVG. You are the real hero of this whole vacation and I will never forget what she did for us in making sure this vacation actually happened and her strength in assisting us in our battle with ANA customer service when our hopes were at their lowest!
While we're handing out awards, let's have a round of applause to items we bought or packed that were indispensable: I, Angie, would like to personally nominate our Suica cards, my handheld fan, my dependable handtowel (Japanese bathrooms are notorious for having no to puny hand dryers and never any paper towels), Google translate, Lion footpads, berry-flavored powdered Tylenol packets, my two packable reusable shopping bags Yoshikitty and Peak Design (used almost every day since you are charged 10 yen for the store's plastic bags), and Happy Step insoles (so much cheaper than Superfeet, didn't last as long, but long enough and the spring in the heel and the arch support was so lovely)!
Favorite memory: Sangen-en gardens in Kagoshima. I know, right?! Sakurajima was just so cool in the background, the gardens were beautiful and easy to amble around, and I just loved how much of an adventure it felt to get there, taking the small train to a small station and walking to the bus stop where I got to watch that old guy fish and had the best view of Sakurajima. It was at the beginning of the trip so we were still pretty fresh and wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was a small part of the trip, but I think my favorite little place.
Best meal: Oh no, it's a tie for me. The kurobuta katsu at Ooyama where we made our own sauce but it tasted great on its own, but also the toriten fried chicken on rice in Beppu. Both of those were just fantastic, fried to perfection, and really used some tasty, fresh cuts of local meat!
Observations: What trends and fashions did we notice about Japan this time? Let's start with the cars. We never got over being amazed at just how QUIET traffic is. All the cars and small trucks are electric and just turn off when stopped at a light. We'd be walking down a four-lane street and it would be completely silent despite the fact it was rush hour traffic and there was a long line of cars just waiting at the light. We had to DEFINITELY check both ways before crossing a street, or we'd be walking down a one-lane street and a car would literally sneak up behind us they were so quiet. It was the sound of tires on gravel that made any noise or gave any indication there was a car behind us!
Baggy clothing is still very much in fashion. All the layers to protect your skin from the sun, but large, light and airy to keep you cool. Many women wore long, flowing ankle skirts, a nice blouse or tee shirt, and a cardigan or light sweater over that. Fukuoka is very much a big, expensive city as that's where we saw all the fashionable people wearing expensive shoes and purses and nice outfits. Luckily we weren't too schlubby compared to the people of Kagoshima or Yakushima or Beppu! The city-folk makeup trend I noticed in the smaller, younger girls was what I'd like to call "China doll that just got done crying" with red eyeshadow lining the lower eye and some of the upper eyelid, and a slight blush on the cheeks and nose and very tiny, pouty lips like on a doll.
While there aren't very many western tourists there were a TON of Chinese tourists. I think they were just very recently allowed back into the country. I didn't notice many Korean, even though it is just a ferry ride away from Nagasaki, it's fairly easy to get to Kyushu from China as well. I'll leave it to Jeff to talk about the geography side of that observation. Meanwhile, on the non-Asian side of tourism, the rest of the white people were either German or Italian. We did meet that Swedish lady in Aso, and a Canadian couple in Kumamoto waiting for the train to Fukuoka (while a German couple sitting on the bench across from us just kinda glared at us and staunchly refused to be engaged in the conversation). Let's just say we are not impressed by the Italians. Any time we overheard a conversation that made us frown: Italian. Our least favorite person on this trip: David from Italy with all the OPINIONS. I'm just gonna add Italy to the list of places I don't really wanna vacation to (the only other place on there is France, really).
Mask wearing was made optional in March of this year, outside of businesses, and the mandate compeltely lifted at the end of April, right before Golden Week, just a week before our vacation. I'd say about 60% of the people were wearing masks, most of them being in the cities and most definitely more often on mass transit. Speaking of wearing masks, the lady behind me, who sounds like she has freakin' tuberculosis, better be wearing a mask! The guy in front of me has been kind a cough-y too...
What should we remember to do or not do for next trip?
DON'T PRE-CHECK IN FOR YOUR FLIGHT IF FLYING MORE THAN ONE AIRLINE! It was that cursed pre-flight check in with United when I booked through ANA that apparently caused that whole stupid mess when our flights with United to Houston were canceled and ANA was like "I can't do anything until the check-in status is canceled with United", but even after United canceled that they still refused to say they could do anything (until Tonya told ANA what's what! Wooo!). But anyway, weird lesson learned.
I dunno if JR railpasses will be worth it in the future. I think we just barely broke even on ours for the 7 day All-Kyushu rail pass. And prices are going up 65% in October of this year!!! Railway tickets in general are going up, so I guess it's to compensate for that, but the JR railpass only covers JR lines, and outside of Tokyo it doesn't cover as much. We used the subway more than the trains for local places, and JR was basically the big city to city trains anyway.
Hm, can't think of much of anything else... but I'll try to add on to this if I do!
I'm gonna hand this over to Jeff and he can fill in his own awards, thoughts, and faves!
Most Indispensable Things I Brought With Me: I touched on this (I think) in a previous entry, but buying new clothes (at least new socks and new t-shirts) was a great move. They all broke in at the same rate, so there wasn't any sensory inconsistency from day to day. The feeling of putting on a fresh pair of new socks at the start of a new day was great. I know a lot of folks bring their oldest socks/underwear/t-shirts with them on these trips so they can just pitch them to make more room for souvenirs, and I've tried that before - definitely wasn't worth it. I'd rather have a slightly heavier pack to take home than wear clothing that's nigh-on uncomfortable. Honorable mention goes to this cheap UV protective light-weight hoodie I picked up at Donki in Beppu. That thing was super useful in both the streets and the hotel rooms. Also, my sun umbrella. While we didn't use it exceptionally frequently, it was very useful when we did.
Favorite Memory: As little as I was able to find, and as silly as it may sound, I think digging through bins and boxes of old anime figures at the various shops along the way was my favorite bit. Nature is all well and good, but fighting against the sun and exhaustion definitely took a bit of the fun off the top.
Best Meal: Probably a tie between the Hambagu Steaki at Royal Host and the first round of Family Mart's Famichicki. I'm a trash man, I eat garbage. So a lot of the dinners at the various hotels were a bit too fancy and delicate for my Big Ol Baby With Money palate. Also, that green green goodness - CocaCola Melon.
Observations: Tourists ruin everything, and I say that as a tourist. The best places we went had the lowest percentage of tourists, conversely the places with the most tourists were the least fun overall. How would I advise you to be a good tourist instead of a bad one? If you're gonna go on a vacation to a place, do your research so you don't show up in Japan not knowing how to use chopsticks or not knowing the basic greetings/thank yous/etc. Move with intent when walking. Don't stand around gawking in the middle of the lane. Don't walk multiple people abreast in crowded areas, because you're inconveniencing those around you. Be mindful of your surroundings. Speak quietly when possible. Wear a mask when you're in public. Be thankful to people you interact with.
I need to very much echo the cars observation Angie made as well. The quiet and calm of rush hour traffic in every major city was *phenomenal*. I know that it'll take decades for that to happen in America, because a large percentage of people take pride in being as disruptive and loud as humanly possible, but I'm hopeful that it'll happen for us one day.
My dislike of busses continues, but I've finally figured out some of the Why. Firstly, they're subject to traffic - which can throw off the time tables by up to 20 minutes in some places. Secondly, they don't stop at every stop unless someone pushes the button, so there's a non-zero chance of missing a stop if you're not hypervigilant. I don't want either of those things when I'm on public transit. I wanna chill out until I hear them call my stop and then get off the mass transit. All in all, trains are superior to buesses, but I will deal with busses when necessary.
Pachinko parlors are much, much quieter than they were on our previous trips. There may have been an ordinance passed about them that limits their noise, but it's the difference between feeling like you're sticking your head between two slot machines both simultaneously hitting a jackpot (how loud it used to be) when you walk past one, to honestly not even noticing that you were in front of one unless you read the sign. Good change, overall.
Even with my limited baggage, I still feel like I overpacked. I brought a pair of unnecessary jeans. The hiking pants will do just fine next time. I brought several things that I never even used once, but if I wouldn't have brought them we would've somehow needed them (a couple extra battery packs, a belt, an emergency poncho, a large and small packable towel).
(Angie here: meanwhile, I feel I packed just enough! I used everything and really needed that laundry day and a half (where we did a small load in Yakushima). I wish I had brought cuter things, like a skater dress or pinafore, since I really liked my overalls, but all in all what I packed was perfect!)
While we didn't encounter any overt racism on this trip, we did get to see some Preferential Racism a few times. Once, in a Crane Game shop - where the staff kept saying "Please speak Japanese" to several groups of Chinese tourists who were trying to ask questions in both Chinese and English, but those same staff definitely spoke English with us just fine. The other, when I was at Mos Burger and a North African person was having trouble ordering and understanding the staff - I did a bit of Google Translate from Japanese to French for him and he was able to get his food correctly. The staff seemed flabbergasted, as they assumed all tourists spoke English.
The costs of things in vending machines and at shops has barely changed since our 2019 trip or our 2016 trip. Onigiri went up maybe ¥10 (¥110 to ¥120), sodas are up maybe Y30 (from Y150 to Y180), and Famichiki changed by about ¥30 (¥200 to ¥230). Gas costs the same as I remember per Liter (¥160ish in most places). It's bananas. How did Japan not get obliterated by inflation like America did? Unless our inflation was mostly created by corporate greed and profiteering landlords during a multi-year pandemic. Makes ya wonder, don't it?
While I can't speak for the flight cost itself, I can tell you this much: Premium Economy on ANA appears to be worth every penny we spent on it, based on Angie's reactions so far. I've been told that it's basically what standard/coach was back in the 1990s and that (much like the inflation bit mentioned above) corporate greed robbed us of this experience in a post 9/11 world. Thanks a lot, capitalism. Ya shits.
Last thing for now: These trips are always worth it in the long run. I complain a lot in these blog posts, but that's because the negatives shine much more powerfully in my memory at the time they're happening. I would encourage anyone reading this that if it sounds fun, and you can make the costs work, then you should definitely do it. We'll answer any questions you've got and we'd be more than happy to play tour guide if our dates line up.
With that, back to Angie for a brief closing.
I think that pretty much sums it up! We're now 2 hours 11 minutes away from our destination of Washington D.C. Here's to hoping all goes well there, our souvenir suitcase has made it, and all will be hunky dorie and we make it to CVG at the 2:30pm they promised us!
Thanks for reading! We look forward to our next trip! :)
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