Japan 2023: Day 5 - Yakushima

This morning we awoke as we have been: to a gentle sunlight filtering in through the curtains as a new day began to dawn...at 5:30 a.m. It's not just jet lag, Japan's super early sunrises are not helping us sleep in any later! Luckily, we were able to drift back to sleep after pulling the curtains closed...

Until the song Edelweiss blasted over the town's speaker system! The same one we heard echoing the 3:00 after school and 5:00 end of work day chimes across the mountains yesterday. Sheesh!

Well, I guess we were up, and breakfast was at 7, so we got ready. 

Breakfast was very traditional with rice, miso, tamagoyaki, a sausage, a bacon slice, salad, tsukemono, mentaiko, and two small grilled fishes. And I went for it. I saw someone nearby eating the whole fish so, when in Rome-er Japan! I enjoyed it. A very dense taste of fish and smoke, a bite of rice mellowed it out and it was pretty tasty!

Today was our first tour with the amazing Y.E.S. Yakushima tour group. They are English speaking and will pick you up and drive you and guide you on tours around Yakushima. They even made reservations at the hotel were staying at for us and even made the hydrofoil Toppy reservations for us! They are the perfect choice for us since we don't have a rental car but still want to see a good amount of this island!

BIG ROCK

Today's tour started at 8:30 and was the Shiratani Unsuikyo tour with Masashi as our tour guide. We also had another person sign up (hooray! The more people the cheaper the tour!) who was David (dah-veed) from Italy who had also lived and worked in America for most of his life of three years :P  I'll leave all opinions of David to Jeff.  He was very much a chad bro who thought himself intellectual but had OPINIONS on everything. *steps down off soap box*.  Masashi was a very funny guy who currently lives in Yakushima working for the tour company as well as a tea farm! He was born in Gunma and gets to visit Hokkaido, where his wife is from, to visit her family.

I saw the sign

And it opened up my eyes

Is saw the sign!

The drive up some of the mountain was twisty-windy and we saw some monkeys (no pictures, sorry) on our way up! A while after we started walking the trail, maybe about 10 minutes in, it got super duper tough and intense. Lemme see if I can find a video of this path...Here we go, THIS is a good one! At 4:33 you'll see how most of the trail was:  all steep uphill and slippery rocks and tree roots! Oh lawdy, what did I get us into?! The website made this tour sound easy. 45 minutes to the summit of Taiko Iwa (you can see the breathtaking view in that previously posted video at 22:14) and "relatively easy to access". I am still shocked and impressed that both of us made it up AND DOWN this mountain trail without more than severely grindy/achy knees and ankles and what will probably be the stiffest, sorest leg muscles I have ever had in my life tomorrow!

"This tree is older than Jesus!"

But seriously, this forest was gorgeous. It was the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki many times, most notably Princess Mononoke. There are so many different types of moss and HUGE sugi cedar trees, one being over 1,000 years old and more waterfalls than you can shake a moss-covered stick at! [Jeff Edit: Here's a short video of one that I took.] Unfortunately, this is not a hike where you can walk and marvel at the scenes around you since you have to concentrate on stepping from rock to rock and try not to twist your ankle or fall down the side of the mountain. Breaks were few and far between and spent huffing and puffing while gazing at the beauty through foggy glasses. (Okay, quick rant here: You know what really grinds my gears? As the person who is out of shape and often at the back of a hiking group, when you stop for that last person to catch up DO NOT CONTINUE HIKING AS SOON AS I FUCKING GET THERE. YOU JUST GOT A QUICK BREATHER WHILE I PUFFED MY WAY TO JOIN YOU! I GET TO TAKE A LITTLE BREAK TOO, DAMMIT!)

I complain too much here for an experience that will stick with me forever, though. Our guide Masashi was terrific, and the feeling of breaking through the tree line to find myself on a large boulder that just ended in mountain scenery was a very powerful feeling indeed. This was a view that I worked hard for. I have no idea how my body managed to survive that hike but dammit, she came through for me and allowed me to experience this incredible view of Yakushima from atop a friggin mountain! Go me!

And Jeff, too, of course! He stuck with me and made sure that when the others pulled ahead he was there to lend a hand and we encouraged each other to continue. He didn't even get the reward of seeing the view as he is scared of heights (this view would have done him in)! This man is a champ and amazing and so wonderful to go along on this hike with me <3 I love him very much for it!

The way down was quicker, but harder on my knees. Some of the steps down were more than half my height and I just kept thinking that one misstep on a slimy, round rock would twist my ankle and ruin the rest of this vacation. With that threat in mind and also the promise of the island's best matcha ice cream when we were finished, we carefully made it back down the mountain the way we came. The entire hike took about 6 hours! Needless to say, I'm a little bit tired! LOL! But it is very rewarding knowing that Jeff and I both were able to take on this trail (that I'm seeing listed as "for experienced hikers and mountain climbers with good athletic ability" on some other websites) and see some amazing sights that can only be seen here in Yakushima! 

And the matcha ice cream at Hachimanjyu Tea Garden was a very delicious reward too! :P 

Needless to say, I got my stinky, sweaty butt into the shower immediately after getting back to our hotel. Jeff got us Mos Burger for dinner before they could close at 6 on us again, and we enjoyed food from one of the only fast food restaurant chains on this island!

We did a bit of laundry (it was either laundry or setting fire to my sweaty clothes and undergarments. It was a safety hazard to leave those garments out in the open for more than 2 hours!) and I went to the hot spring bath next door since it was the women's turn today. I made sure no one else was in there, taking the advice of the lady at the front desk who said it would be best to wait until no one was in there for me to soak my naked, tattooed body. It wasn't very hot (the temperature duck said it was only 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees F)) so I soaked a bit but returned to the room about 10 minutes later.

Laundry is now dry and it's time for me to hand this blog entry over to Jeff who will hopefully add in things I didn't remember and contribute his valuable and humorous insights!

I would go over how weary I am, and how... interesting it was to hike with someone who made no sense to me. Who's heard of an Italian Libertarian, ffs? These kids today, I swear. He had strong opinions on everything, and I say that as a person with strong opinions about a lot of things. The trouble was, all of his opinions were typical Alpha Male / Libertarian Rich Guy / Strong Conservative Man talking points that all sounded regurgitated from some podcast where a dude who looks like they failed out of an MBA tells you why your life is meaningless. He was nice enough, and we chatted about books a bit, but his opinions on those were a bit... I dunno. Boring and predictable. "The new Lord of the Rings TV  show was too Woke.". Remember, kids, if someone says something is Woke as a term of derision, you probably can't trust their opinions on a lot of things.  2/5 stars, would tolerate again, but only due to the discount.

About half of our hike was me looking at the ground. Partially because, as Angie mentioned, it was slippery rocks and roots as far as the eye can see - which is how I ruined my knee in the first place back in Scouts - and partially because every 30m or so, there was another sheer drop off and my vertigo would play merry havoc with my balance. Good times. 

The bentos provided on the hike were aggressively fine. I did supplement mine with some Calorie Mate, the closest thing humans have ever invented to Bachelor Chow. It's a wonderful, perfect, very useful foodstuff. 400 calories per box and something like half your daily expected minerals and vitamins. Love 'em. Too bad they're generally rather expensive in the US or I'd eat them every day for breakfast. 

Mmm, jelly donut

I definitely have White Woman Visiting Ireland In Her 20s syndrome going on everywhere we visit, though. A lot of invasive thoughts like "Should I move here?!" and "Oh, this would be such a calm and cool and rad place to live.". It's a problem I have everywhere I go, which probably should tell me something about how I feel about Ohio, but it's what it's. 

That's all I've got for tonight. Y'all be good. 

Japan 2023: Day 4 - Kagoshima to Yakushima

 Today was the perfect day to travel: it rained. Most of the day. And then it stopped by the evening when we ventured out to eat dinner! How kind of it! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This morning we got up early early so we could have yet another delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel, the Sun Royal Hotel. The day before, the front desk were awesome in ordering us a cab. There's no bus that goes to the ferry port and heck if we were going to walk 30 minutes with our backpack luggage in the rain (I looked ahead at the weather report and went UH-UH, no thank you)! We weren't really sure how to go about calling and ordering a cab but luckily they have a information desk that did just that for us! They were worried they might not find one at short notice on a weekend morning, but they came through for us.

And so, that was how we were able to get to the Kagoshima port quickly and stay dry. It wasn't one of those fancy cabs you see in Tokyo or anything, but we were happy. And it didn't cost an arm or a leg either!

Once again timing was on our side. We were about an hour early before our jetfoil boat "Toppy" was scheduled to leave. We checked in and took a seat. There were maybe 6 other people there. But about 30 minutes later the rest of the passengers came rolling in. Surprisingly, there were a good amount of foreigners! Yakushima seems to be a popular hiking destination for foreigners and a subtropical getaway for Japanese. 

Toppy is a large hydrofoil that goes fast across the water and got us to the island within 2.5 hours. And that was including a stop at another island just before Yakushima! It's almost equivalent to riding in an airplane with a bit of bumpy turbulence most of the way. You're even seated the same way, too. There's no getting up and walking around the boat, or restaurants or games like on the slower ferry to Yakushima (which takes about 4 hours). Toppy is made to get you there fast, so strap in and watch the NNN and Japanese variety shows on the big screens up front!

Unfortunately, it was still raining when we arrived in port and there's not really many options for us to get to our hotel. No bus really goes that direction, there were NO taxis to be seen, or it's a 15 minute walk. Walking it is I guess! The rain slowed to a gentle pitter patter, but we still got a little wet, but luckily the walk wasn't anything too difficult. We were quite dewy though when we got to our hotel, the Yakushima Sanso Hotel. Check-in is at 3 and it was only 1:30 but thank the lord they let us into our room! We must have looked pitiful, LOL!

Our room is a traditional Japanese one and is right next door to one of the hot spring rooms! They have two which are separated for men and women, and they switch each day. Today, the men get the bath next door. I once again asked the front desk if tattoos were okay. She kinda hemmed and hawed and I told her not to worry, I understood and would not use it. She said she thought it would be okay if no one else was in the bath. LOL. I guess I can live with that! I know the baths are popular after dinner hours and it's only open until 10 pm. I wonder when the baths are the most empty? 9 pm?

Anyway, I took off my damp clothes and took a good ol' regular shower in our hotel room and was blown away. Like, almost literally! I don't think I have ever encountered such STRONG water pressure before! The next step up is a freakin' fire hose! It was fantastic though!

Isn't this view from our hotel GORGEOUS?

Jeff and I relaxed at the little table, opened up the screened windows and enjoyed the cool breeze while watching nature with our room's amazing view. We ate some of our snacks, fiddled with our phones, and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon not having anywhere we needed to be. Oh! Around 4:10 there was a small tremor! I know we've had earthquakes in Ohio but never anything I ever noticed. I noticed this one though! It made the whole building sway underneath you, like someone slammed a door real hard (like REAL hard, at least that was the first thought that came to my mind really). So that was a fun new experience for me! There's also a sound system somewhere REALLY close (we think atop a school) that does the 4 tone chime at 3:00 when school is over and 5:00 when the work day is over and the little announcement comes on. 

Around 6 we headed out to find something to eat that wasn't Mos Burger (the only chain restaurant on this half of the island. There's also no conbinis), and Jeff had found a place called Sungun Burger that had a venison burger from local deer. Unfortunately they weren't open for some reason (website said 6 and it was after 6...). There aren't a ton of options within walking distance of the hotel. We were looking around and a lady poked her head out of one restaurant we were looking at and said "Japanese barbeque!" and we're like, "Sure!" since it seemed like a cute, friendly place. And it was! The owner was very funny. She enjoyed our few words of Japanese and we enjoyed her few words of English. When I ordered a Calpis to drink she laughed and said, "Baby drink! You baby!" And later she brought out bibs to protect our clothes from the grilled meat oils and was like "See? Baby!" She was cracking me up! There was only one other couple in there when we came in, but soon many others followed. The person who was sat next to us (we were at a counter) was also a foreigner and we got to chat. Jo is from New Zealand and has been in Japan for over 2 months! She is taking a 3 month vacation to travel around Japan, starting at Tokyo and just going south, as a solo traveler! It was a lot of fun talking to her while eating REALLY REALLY delicious pork and beef we grilled on little grills in front of us!

Bib for Baby and her Calpis!

It's still early in the evening but we're back in our room, writing this, listening to the people walk by on the river path below our hotel room as well as the nature sounds of the Anbo River and peepers and the occasional call of some weird bird out in the forest. I'm really looking forward to our tour of Shiratani Unsuikyo tomorrow! After about 8 am any chance of rain is gone and it's looking to be sunny but also in the 60s!! PERFECT!

And now, the moment you've been waiting for, heeeeeere's Jeff!

The more time I spend in rural Japan, the more it reminds me of rural Ohio - both good and bad. It's very quiet, which is a thing that I miss so much living in Cincinnati. The restaurant schedules seem to operate on Farmer Time ("I only wrote 6pm on that sign because they told me I needed a time. Your fault for believing a sign."). The hotel itself is... rustic. Imagine a big concrete building poured in the 1930s, then remember that each room is about as sturdy as a Scout Cabin complete with the old wood paneling. Structural integrity aside, the staff is nice and the views are great, so it's kind of a wash overall. We'll see what the next couple of days bring. 

I miss the convenience of combinis on every other corner, but such is life in the sticks. With all that out of the way, I'm going to go try this fabled high-pressure washer that Angie continues to talk about. 

P.S. This is Angie again. I was reminded to mention a current hair fashion trend we don't understand: blocky, square, separated, wet-looking bangs? We noticed it when watching the teevees and seeing current celebrities and idols have their bangs like this.

Japan 2023: Kyushu Day 3 - Ibusuki

 This morning we started the day with a breakfast provided by the hotel in a buffet style. They had mostly Japanese breakfast foods, but I think I saw some cocoa puffs among the cereal selection.  Naturally, Jeff and I enjoyed some Japanese selections like grilled fish (no salmon, but the mackerel was still tasty), rice with dashi broth, some tempura pea thing that tasted like a latke to me, croissants, white grape (muscat) juice, salad, coffee with a tea bag in it. LOL, that last thing was Jeff accidentally thinking the machine would deposit hot water for tea but it was coffee! I don't think he drank it, or maybe he did and then zoomed around so fast to burn it off I didn't even see him move!

While we have been enjoying the Family Mart across the street, we had to walk a few blocks to the nearest 7-Eleven where us foreigners can withdraw money from the ATM with our cards. Apparently there is hardly any ATMs on the island we will be going to tomorrow. Gotta be prepared! We also prepared by getting snacks in case there is also no good vending machines to go along with the few to none conbini available on the island. I finally found some Lion foot patches to put on my soon to be very achey feet at the end of the day!

But I digress, today was all about taking the train to Ibusuki, a small city about an hour and a half (or 50 minutes express) from Kagoshima where we were staying now. This is about as south as you can get on the main part of southern Japan (Kyushu). This is where the sands are hot from volcanic activity and the original weighted blanket was invented. We arrived in town around 12:30 and it was DEAD. Not even the bus we were going to take to the sand baths was running yet, so we walked the 20 minute route that would take us to the baths. It was a ghost town. Paint is flaking, metal is rusting, and if a tumbleweed blew across a silent street I wouldn't have thought it strange! Are we just really early to the party? Do people not show up until late? No one visits until the weekend? Is the town suffering from decline because of COVID? Has it always been like this? Really, we have no idea why it was so SO quiet. The only soul we really saw was a Chinese lady who asked if we were looking for the sand baths (we were doing just fine with our Google maps) and she pointed out a slightly quicker route. We complimented her English and thanked her and were on our way. In fact, we arrived right as the facility opened at 1:00.

Ibusuki was part of a tourism promo with Pokemon where you could try and find all the Eevee evlotions painted on manhole covers across the city...in 2019

The Saraku Sandbath Hall is a three story facility right along the beach. They are tattoo friendly and the sand part you are covered up for and there's no separating of the genders like in a hot spring. You strip in the mens or women's locker room, putting your stuff in a locker and wearing the key on your wrist, as well as wearing a long yukata robe and carry a small towel with you. You exit the changing rooms and everyone meets up by a ramp that takes you down toward the beach where roofed sand pits are. The employees wrap your small towel around your head, you lay down on a spot and then the employees shovel hot (but really not too bad) volcanic sand on top of you so that you're just a head sticking out! LOL, I didn't get any pictures since they don't allow cameras, but there's YouTube videos you can watch.

You can totally feel your feet go WUB WUB and pulse to your heartbeat. It's like a nice weighted blanket on you and quite relaxing! It's not too hot, but my face was starting to sweat near the end of it. For health reasons, they only let you stay buried for 10 minutes. The family buried nearby Jeff and I kept talking about how hot it was and how much time was left and at some point there was a bug that a girl near me was doing her best not to freak out and ruin her sand blanket trying to run away LOL. Same girl, same!

Then, after 10 minutes you exit the sand baths and you are light as a feather! Your stresses have melted away (or at least until you walk too much later that evening and your hips and feet start to hurt again)! It's back in the separated rooms to shower and soak in the onsen. I soaked but Jeff just showered and enjoyed a drink on the rooftop of the building. I think my favorite thing is that the weather was PERFECT today! It wasn't very hot at all, so the hot sands and the hot bath felt fantastic and I didn't overheat from too much hot weather!

And some ice cream to cool off while waiting for the bus! 

Big tiddie..Isshie-kun?

We had planned to try and visit Lake Ikeda as I had heard they have a Nessie-like cryptid named Isshi-kun who may or may not be just one of the large eels that live in the lake, but we felt that it would be best to try and get back to Kagoshima-chuo station to catch the last shuttle bus to our hotel (which is free!). We also got to the Ibusuki train station just in time to get the last two tickets to the scenic train Ibutama! The train's theme is that it is the jeweled box (tamatebako) given to Urashima-taro as a gift when he parted the princess in the underwater Dragon Palace. It follows along the ocean coast and sprays mist when parked in the station. We didn't have much time to ogle and geek out over the train as it was leaving in less than 5 minutes! But it certainly got us back to Kagoshima-chuo station a lot faster than our morning train! It was very creaky though. I thought it was going to just break in half!

All-wood interior

The gift was US all along!

Back at the station we decided to check out the restaurants there for Linner. I had been wanting to try the area's local specialty kurobuta (black-haired pig) and this place did katsu. Oh man, it was AMAZING! The restaurant, Ooyama, has you make your own sauce by grinding sesame seeds with a mortar and pestle, and then you add your katsu sauce (like a barbeque) to the ground seeds. Lastly, they give you salad dressing for the shredded cabbage. Jeff got the menchi-katsu and I got the kurobuta katsu (tonkatsu) and it was so delicious! It didn't need any sauce since the pork flavor was so good on its own! I thought Jeff's menchi katsu tasted a little like meatloaf! Not bad but I really was happy with my choice! We both were happy with our meals and give it 5/5 stars!

Kurobuta katsu

Menchi Katsu

Oh! That's what I wanted to mention! If you are in Japan and are looking for something to eat, search for the food in Japanese. So don't search "sushi near me" search 寿司 or スシ. And if things don't have 5 stars and you're finding mostly 3s or 3.5s, don't worry! For some reason they don't like handing out 5 star reviews at all. So a 3 is pretty darn good and a 4 means its amazing! Meanwhile, over in America, we see 3 stars as not that great and 5 as good. LOL

We meandered around the mall's Bic Camera store where Jeff bought some Magic cards and fawned over the new Zelda game (which we found out would work on our Switch, but we wouldn't be able to install any DLC later, due to weird region locking of the Switch store itself) and we both went crazy at the gatchapon machines. They had a good selection!

Finally we returned back to our hotel, arranged a taxi to take us to the port for our ferry trip to Yakushima, and checked out the arcade down the street. We did some purikura and I won two adorable borb keychains! SO CUTE! I can't do big UFO catcher games, but the little ones (probably aimed for kids) I can do okay! :) Never mind the fact I think I spent over $10 trying to get these two keychains. >_>

No! Japan! Stop! Wha-what are you doing????

LOLOLL, Purikura has "face slimming" and makes your eyes bigger and adds makeup. Sometimes the effect is alien-like!

And now it's late and we gotta get up early tomorrow. Jeff, what have you to say?

Angie's covered basically everything I had thought about today apart from this: Kagoshima and Ibusuki are both very rural, when compared to any of the cities of Japan. That being said, most other rural areas we've visited over the years have been rife with friendly people. I think having three years with no foreigners (apart from the band, Foreigner, which has always been allowed) has reverted them back to "gaijin ga kowai desu~!". It's kinda said, but I get it. 

Bye~

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!

Japan 2023: Kyushu- Day 1 - Flight

 Oh boy, this trip to Japan almost didn't happen. Again-again. At least that's how it felt. Coming home from work at 9:30 to a text on my phone saying our first flight, from CVG to Houston, was canceled due to weather. Please call United airlines to reschedule or if you wish to cancel. WHAT?! Okay, fine, we call United and held for about 15 minutes. Their weird chat/call thing, which only let us hear the lady at the other end (breath VERY loudly) and tell us that since we booked with ANA, we had to call them. Fine. Call ANA, be on hold for an hour and a half and they say they can't do anything because we did the early check in through United and they have to cancel the check in. Call United and wait half an hour and they take about 45 minutes talking to supervisors trying to figure out how to "cancel a check in". Someone Jeff talked to said they think they got it but it'll take 2-3 hours to go through. Call ANA and hold for half an hour and it's the same lady saying she still can't do anything until that check in cancel goes through. It's about 2 a.m. by now and Jeff's decided to attempt some semblance of sleep but I'm too angry to sleep. Visions of having to cancel this trip are flashing through my mind. Not getting anyone at United or ANA to take responsibility for this one canceled flight and just putting us on a fucking other flight that will get us to Haneda airport in Tokyo by Wednesday for fuck's sake! My face was hot and flushed and I am PISSED.

We get to the airport by 4:30 (thank you Espelage Transport!) and decide our best bet is to talk to someone in person while also calling ANA (knowing we'll be on hold for a while). We don't have an ANA desk at CVG but there is a United one. They confirmed that the check in cancellation did go through so ANA shouldn't have any troubles rebooking our flight. This time our hold for ANA was 1 hour and 45 minutes. They have an annoying message every 38 seconds telling us to "help expedite the call, please have your ANA Mileage Club Number ready". Doing some math, we heard that freaking message at least 364 times while on hold. I got no sleep whatsoever, and we were on the phones for 5 hours.

But Lo and Behold, an angel works at the CVG United counter and her name is Tonya. ANA was ONCE AGAIN insisting they were unable to rebook our flight or get us on any other flights out of CVG to an international airport that will whisk us away to Japan. Jeff even had the alternate route all picked out. There was a United flight to ORD at 11:15 that would fly to HND at 12:30 and we could still make it with plenty of time to make our original and final flight to Fukuoka. "No no, I am unable to do that, I am very sorry." The ANA lady was telling Jeff. So he told her to hold a minute as he got in line at the United counters. Enter the hero of our story Tonya, who also knew this ANA agent (I swear we got the same lady all 3 times. She might be the only person who speaks English to answer the phone after midnight PST) was wrong and could absolutely change our flight to the ORD. She took no nonsense, told the ANA agent that United could only change our first flight but ANA had to cancel it first. Through sheer determination and taking no shit, Tonya saved our vacation and we left the United counter with a tear in my eye and triumphantly clutching boarding passes that would get us to Japan! While we are flying United instead of ANA and not in our premium economy seats we so excitedly splurged on, we are in the emergency exit row with an amazing amount of leg room! 

Will we be able to operate this door in case of an emergenc-HELL YEAH! For that amount of leg room we'll push people off the plane for you!

And now we are 2 hours and 33 minutes away from landing in Tokyo's Haneda airport. The extreme low of last night/morning and extreme highs of having the error fixed has left me in a weird numb state of shock. I think I need to hear the Family Mart tune to slap my mind into the present and make it realize we have finally returned to our favorite country to visit!

Also, shout out to my husband's birthday gift to me, a lifesaver on this trip with a baby two rows behind us that they keep bringing in front of us to calm down since we have all this space in the emergency exit row: wireless earbuds with ANC noise cancelling. It's AMAZING how it instantly turns off the loud drone of the airplane engines, and the baby a distant wail I can easily drown out with my music.

 

Now it's later. About 10:30 pm and we are in our hotel room here in Fukuoka, at The Lively Fukuoka Hakata. Whew, what a day full of flying! 

We made it to Haneda and boy is customs BUSY! There are many many people enjoying Japan's fully open borders. And who can blame them? This is an awesome country to visit! Boy were we packed in there though. It was pretty warm too and some girl ahead of us in line had a near-fainting spell! Luckily, Jeff and I made it through the borders okay. Well, almost okay. When we left home I put my house keys in my bag. Now usually I leave my car and house keys at my parents where I'm parked but I was in such a tizzy I forgot. I got pulled aside and bag checked because my Roger Stick (see: pointy, metal, protection jabber for creepy patrons) was in my bag. Opps. I was very apologetic and, thank you Google translate, told them they are okay to throw it away, as long as I get to keep the keys XD.

Adorable vending machines at Haneda in the local departures terminal. Let's get stuff popular in local prefectures!

Customs took so long and our flight into Haneda was delayed an hour, so there was no way we were going to make our connecting flight to Fukuoka. Luckily, THAT was handled easily enough at the ANA ticket counter. And okay, okay, ANA is back in our good graces. I will reserve my hate and judgement for their English speaking line when trying to fix a cancellation. The flight attendant asked us, the only foreigners on the flight, if we were here to sight see and where we were going. We told her and asked if she recommended any good foods. She said that each place here in Kyushu has its own special ramen! We chatted a little and then about 30 minutes later she came back with a small gift of candy and this adorably personalized postcard where each flight attendant wrote their favorite food from the Kyushu cities we'd be visiting! OK ANA, that is how you make me like you again! <3

Seriously, SO CUTE!

Now we're here, showered, appeased with conbini drinks, Fami-Chiki, and a mentaiko rice ball for me and a tuna mayo rice ball for Jeff. 

YUM

Speaking of Jeff, what have you to say about this long long day?

As a phone-based customer service person by trade, the ANA call center person infuriated me to no end. There were multiple, easy fixes that could've been done, but it wouldn't've counted as a sale for her so she wasn't willing to assist. The fact that she repeatedly stated that there were no other possible itineraries that would get us to Fukuoka before Thursday or Friday was infuriating. Ma'am, I found five different ones with a cursory Google search that would all get us there at literally the same time as we expected or earlier. Whatever. That is passed. 

The meals on United were, as usual, bland and inoffensive. While the extra leg room was nice, the flimsy flippy-outy tray table left a lot to be desired. While my earbuds aren't as powerful as Angie's, tuning out babies and emergency sirens from all directions, they did allow me to catch up on some very old Lets Plays that I'd downloaded on my iPad. It's a good thing I did that, since (like every time I'm on an international flight more than 4 hours) the WiFi on the plane was inoperable. We made the best of it, like usual, and had an enjoyable time. Well, as much enjoyment as you can have being on a 14 hour flight next to the bathrooms because Houston TX's weather is inconsiderate. 

After checking into our hotel and wandering out to Family Mart, I'm going to stand by my original assessment; there are orders of magnitude less tourists (well, at the very least, tourists as melanin-deficient and easy to spot as we are) than in any other city we've visited in this country. I could count on one hand the number of Obvious Tourists we've seen since clearing the gates at FUK. 

Speaking of, I hope they have some FUK merchandise at Fukuoka Airport that I can buy. 

That's all I've got for tonight. More to come tomorrow. 

Mr "I wanted to show how grubby I looked" Perfect Hair Forever

Comes out Friday and I get the feeling it's gonna be advertised EVERYWHERE

Japan Trip 2019: Reflections

-What did we do right this time that we didn't try other times?

Announce when we're getting hungry, decide what we feel like, then search Google for " ___ near me" (ex sushi near me) and then just go with the top suggestion. Tabelog was a bust and Google Maps was more than fine. We were able to find a kaiten sushi and omurice this way.

-Any reminders for when we're planning the 2020 trip? Anything we want to remember to tell friends coming with us next year?

Buy a Suica card with your JR Pass! Don't over pack, in fact, pack carry-on only. As Naomi Mitchison said, “Travel light my child, as the Wanderer travels light, and his love will be with you.”. Traveling heavy is the path of the coward and the Boomer. We're better than that.

We also really don't want to wait for anyone using the elevator because they are tiny and there's always a line for them. It's actually part of the Japanese Olympics: line waiting. The elevator at a busy station has an approximate 5 minute wait and we are impatient. We have extra backpacks we're willing to lend out for folks who only have roller bags.

We're going to have to pick between Hakone or Nikko and make it a two day trip with an overnight stay at a ryokan or onsen.

-What tips and tricks should we remember that made our lives easier this time?

Middle plane seats! Don't go for the window seats, go for those middle 4 on the international flight. The ceiling is taller, you might not have anyone sit behind you, and it has the illusion of being more spacious. I didn't have to climb over any strangers to get to the bathroom!

Global Entry was very nice, and TSA precheck as well, but only when leaving the US. Flying out we got to use the TSA precheck, but flying back in we went from Tokyo to Toronto and had to go through Canadian security which is just like American, so off with the shoes and out with the laptops and liquids in a clear baggie and put those backpacks in separate totes, etc. Alas, this is Canada security so our TSA precheck has no power here. And then after that it's customs, where our Global Entry came in handy, but you still have to scan your passport, declare your shit, tell an agent why you were overseas and do you have anything to declare, blah blah. Hopefully our one checked bag of souvenirs will make it to CVG (if the Canadian frat bro, whose name we assume to be Chad or Thad, working the Air Canada customer service desk is correct).

Also, make sure your layovers are at least 2 hours. Even with Global Entry, there was still a line and still a lot of people to process. Plus a lot of walking. Even after all of that, every airport is better than Chicago or Atlanta. We will avoid them at all costs.

Speaking of bags, we need to come up with a better system for souvenirs. We're starting to have quite the collection of large, hard-cased, wheeled suitcases from Japan.  A carry-on size we saw around $40-$50 and the large size $70-$80.  It's nice having the hard-case because it helps protect anything fragile, but Japan is not a place to have a large suitcase. I suppose if you know where you're going, where there will be escalators, if you don't mind waiting for tiny elevators or lugging it up and down stairs, it would be okay, but generally having your luggage as easy-to-carry backpacks and duffel bags is the way to go.  But again, it would be nice to find a way to get the inevitably huge amount of souvenirs home without adding to the luggage collection (which are doing a great job stowing away my costumes. I think I might make one for fragile Christmas decor). Though, flying Air Canada gives us a free checked bag, so maybe we'll just drag an empty one along.

Make sure the shoes you are wearing (and you, yourself) can withstand around 18,000 steps or more per day of walking. Break in shoes and boots before you go. Wear shoe inserts.

Also, medication-wise, Pabron nasal spray was painful but effective for stuffed up sinuses.  Lion feet pads for the end of the day were great for tired feet. Use the "In case of EMERGENCY" Google Doc for OTC drug conversion chart!

-What should we leave out? What did we do that we could leave out next time?

There is such a thing as too much time in Tokyo. It's nice to use the shinkansen and be whisked to various parts of the country. The people are different, the scenery is different, and it really does make for a quick and exciting trip that doesn't get dull. The places we went to were nice day trips so that we weren't staying within the Yamanote loop the whole time, but Kawagoe or Mount Takao or Yokohama wouldn't be at the top of the list for anyone visiting Japan for the first time. There's a reason Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo is such a popular path taken by tourists.

Don't eat the clear noodles in oden! They're not noodles!!! It's a weird-texture trap!

-Anything else?