The next three days we planned to stay in a hotel in Kumamoto, but we only had plans within Kumamoto city for one day. After that, we were going to take the train to Fukuoka and rent a car for a day to check out some spots in Miyazaki Prefecture. Our original plan was to cycle through Miyazaki, but we chose to go to Kumamoto since we noticed the camping season had not really started yet and there was a drought of decent places to stay (and sometimes even get food/drink etc.) between Cape Sata and the first ‘real city’ of Miyazaki, Nichinan. We (I especially, having thoroughly researched cool spots in the area) really wanted to see some of Miyazaki, so we wanted to travel there by car for a bit. I had gotten myself an international driver’s license before we departed to Japan, so renting a car is quite a simple process (in several blogs time, this quote will come to bite me in the ass, just wait).
This time we didn’t park our bikes in our hotel rooms, as there was a bike parking place in the center of the city close to our hotel (about 200 yen a day, 1.30 EUR thereabouts). The first morning in Kumamoto, we checked out Kumamoto Castle before the real crowds would start. Kumamoto Castle is easily the most tourist-heavy place in the city, as the castle has quite a rich history dating back to 1467. Of course, like most if not all castles in Japan, only parts date back that far. Since then, fires, earthquakes, and battles have reaped havoc on the castle time and time again, and it has been repaired over and over. I was actually in Japan in 2016 in Fukuoka (quite nearby) when there was a heavy earthquake in Kumamoto which damaged the castle quite heavily (there were also a number of people killed and hundreds injured). The repair works are estimated to take until 2052, although you could hardly tell with how magnificent the exterior of the castle looked. We had a beautiful view from the top of the castle overlooking Kumamoto and enjoyed the interior, which has been converted into a museum. Often the interior of castles in Japan is one of two things: a museum or an accurate and often authentic interior with the wooden beams and floors just as they were during the golden age of the castle. We would later experience the other in Matsuyama, so it was fun to see the other side this time. There is a bit of old ‘castle town’ left, although it is debatable how much of that is authentic, which has been converted to various shops and cafes. The weather was great, so we opted for some ice cream. Robin got a matcha ice cream, whilst I opted for the slightly adventurous ‘karashi’ (spicy Japanese mustard) and lotus root flavor. You might think I’m messing with you, but I thought it was incredibly delicious! It’s strange to have that spicy feeling in your nose from eating ice cream, but the flavors worked pretty well together.
After the castle, we looked around Sakuramachi (literally cherry blossom town), a large mall in the center of the city near the castle. The exterior is adorned with several figures of Kumamoto’s mascot: Kumamon (to explain: Japan is big on mascots, every town/city basically has one, often large companies have one, sometimes inexplicably infrastructure projects have one (like bridges, which you’ll hear about later). This one, Kumamon is a black bear, probably because kuma means bear in Japanese) and is incredibly popular in Japan).
He’s a bit of a conundrum, he looks both happy and cute, but has a slightly unnerving almost psychotic look in his eyes. Maybe that’s why he’s the number one mascot, you can make of him what you want. Anyway, in Kumamoto, there’s no getting around him, there are Kumamon socks, Kumamon Yakult, Kumamon-themed foods, etc. It makes sense, since a calculation showed that he added about 1 billion euros in economic benefit to the prefecture.
Anyway, afterward, we strolled through the shotengai (商店街), a covered shopping street/arcade where a lot of different smaller shops and larger chain restaurants and shops are located. We should really bring the concept to the Netherlands, as it is raining there about 80% of the time. Imagine shopping without getting wet (yes, I know we’re not made of sugar, etc.).
The rest of the day we took it easy, drank some coffee, wrote part of the blog (yes, not enough, I’m behind like crazy). We also checked out the route we would take from Kumamoto to Beppu, since Mt. Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan was smack dab in the middle of our planned route. We also checked out the famous Suizenji garden, and it was pretty, but it also was obviously still the beginning of March (again, this dates how much I’m behind, shut up) so there was a lot of brown where green would really liven up the place. We ate some Kumamoto ramen, which was sooooo good, and headed back to our hotel for the night.
The next morning we headed to Fukuoka by Shinkansen, as we both were a bit sad the original plan didn’t include the city in our plans (it was just a bit out of the way). We both love the city, we visited it in 2019 together and I even studied there for 3 months in 2016 during university. Being back there felt a tiny bit like coming home!
A bit of background on Fukuoka; it’s the biggest city on Kyushu, the southern of the 4 main islands of Japan. The city is a bit of a melting pot of cultures insofar as that exists in Japan, as there was a lot of interaction with (South) Korea and China due to the proximity of the port of Fukuoka to both (especially Korea). There’s a lot of great shopping malls, parks, temples, and shrines and the vibe is just all around great. It’s also often the place where people go for a trip to South Korea as the port of Busan is only a few hours away by fast ferry. After arriving in Fukuoka, we wanted to go for coffee at a place I had found on Google Maps. However, when we got there we saw a line outside stretching about 50 meters, so we opted not to go there. Although lines in Japan almost always mean the food (or coffee or both) is great, we only had a day in Fukuoka and standing in line wasn’t really part of the plan. Thus we headed to Tully’s Coffee, which is a bit like a Japanese version of Starbucks.
During our visit, we did a bit of everything. After having some coffee and a donut, because why not, we headed to Canal City, a shopping mall that has a bit of a canal running through it. It’s sometimes called a ‘city within a city’ because there are shops, restaurants, a cinema, cafes, hotels, and entertainment like game centers and pachinko. There are also some short displays where they use fountains to create patterns in tune with classical music that plays alongside. It’s pretty cool for a mall, is what I’m trying to say.After lunch, we headed to Kishida Shrine, a Shinto shrine dating back to 757. It’s the starting point of two popular summer festivals in Fukuoka. During these festivals large floats are carried through the streets and within the shrine examples are displayed. Within the shrine, it’s said that a fountain exists which can grant eternal youth. I looked for it yet couldn’t find it, although I need it, my knees feel like those of a 90-year-old after all this cycling.
After the shrine visit, we walked to Fukuoka harbor to check out the Hakata Port Tower, a large viewing tower which provides an excellent overview of the harbor and downtown Fukuoka. An added benefit is that entry is free and we’re still Dutch. The elevator takes you directly from the ground floor to the top, 70 meters up. It’s long been surpassed as the tallest building in Fukuoka, there’s even a tower, aptly named Fukuoka tower, which is almost twice as tall that functions as de-facto viewpoint over the city. I’d already been there once and it is located quite a ways from downtown AND it costs money to go up, which made the choice quite easy.We were slowly approaching the end of the day, so we headed back to downtown, had another coffee (probably the best one so far, shoutout to ONCA Coffee), checked out Ohori park (very shortly as if started raining at that point), then decided to go back to Kumamoto somewhat on time, as we had to get up early to pick up our rental car. We read that there was a local Fukuoka based Italian restaurant chain named Pietro’s that had pretty good pasta. Since we were curious (and they had mentaiko (明太子) or pollock roe carbonara pasta) we checked it out and it truly was pretty good pasta! Not that we’re really ones to judge, especially me, since I ordered a Japanese-ified pasta dish.
We were at the Toyota Rent-a-Car location at 8 AM sharp to gather our tiny little Japanese kei-car (a class of car that has less than a 1L engine and has very tiny proportions). The process went smoothly; you make a reservation online, they check your papers, e.g. passport, international driver’s license and sometimes normal driver’s license, and they hand you the keys. This time, we got a small red Toyota Pixis Joy that isn’t even sold outside of Japan. The word ‘cute’ is not altogether wrong to describe the look of the car. Anyway, it did the job of getting us where we needed to go splendidly.
When we were getting ready to depart, however, I couldn’t for the life of me find the parking brake. This looked somewhat hilarious as the rental car personnel was sort of in the process of waving us off and we were just standing there for a good 2 minutes. I eventually figured out the third pedal, which I think is normal for a car to have, being used to manual transmission cars, was the brake pedal, because why would there be three pedals in an automatic… Yeah I’m not the brightest sometimes.
We had three different things on the agenda to see that day: First of all: Takachiho Gorge, which is a beautiful gorge that attracts a crapload of tourists as we arrived around 10 in the morning on a weekday out of the normal vacation season and it was already booming with tourists. We noticed there were barely any westerners there though, it was mostly Chinese and South East Asian tourists. That turned out to be a trend we’d noticed at most places that weren’t on the Golden Route (Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, and Osaka). Takachiho Gorge itself was possibly even more beautiful than we’d expected, the water was bright blue and looking down you see a lot of people in rowboats paddling around whilst water falls from the cliffs around them. Combined with some great weather (we really can’t complain about the weather this trip so far, although occasionally we do, being Dutch and all), this turned it into an almost magical sight. We both tried to capture it as best we could and I flew around with my drone for a bit (which you can see here), trying to show some different views, but a camera (even one flying 120m in the sky) doesn’t really capture the experience. We did think about getting in one of the rowboats, but it was somewhat expensive and the waiting time turned out to be around 3 to 4 hours (at 10 AM, what the hell), so we were quickly disabused of that notion. We did get a dango (mochi or pounded rice balls on a stick) with miso and walnut glaze to eat before getting back in the car.
It was just a quick 15-minute trip from Takachiho Gorge to Amanoyasukawara Shrine. This shrine is famous because it lies in a ravine and is hidden under a cliff, so you can only get there by a short hike/walk on foot. People stack rocks on top of one another there for good luck, which makes the approach fun, as you slowly encounter more and more rock stacks. There is also quite a bit of lore behind the shrine, which you can read about here if you’re so inclined.
Our last stop was Kamishikimi Kumanoza-shrine, mostly famous because of the long and steep stone steps through the forest leading to the shrine. Praying at this shrine supposedly brings happiness in marriage, but very little is known about the history of the shrine otherwise. It did feel a bit mysterious whilst we were ascending the steps, as the sky darkened when we were progressing further into the forest.
After our final must-do stop, we enjoyed some views of Mt. Aso, which we would have to cycle up and through the next day. Robin was slightly anxious at how much elevation gain there was that we would have to climb up the next day, but spoilers: we survived. Once back in Kumamoto, we had some curry at Coco Ichibanya after handing in our car. Coco Ichibanya is a chain or Japanese curry restaurants which you can find just about anywhere in Japan that has a decent population. The fun part about it is you can customize your order many different ways, from the toppings, to the curry itself. I especially like the spiciness levels, which used to range from 1-10, but apparently that was not enough because they’ve now added 15 and 20. I normally am pretty good with spicy food, but level 3 is normally where the balance between spicy and good tasting starts to break down, after that it’s just more pain and less flavor. All that to say that level 15 and 20 are ridiculous and I don’t see how it could possibly be something you unironically order. (I’ve since tried level 4 and it was also pretty doable, maybe my spice tolerance has increased, will try 5 or 6 next time). Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel once more to get ready for the next day (and a bit of a surprise for at least one of us!)
