Jean's Blog: Kyushu

{ November, 2013 }

Finally~! I'm back from my week long vacation in Kyushu, Japan!!^^

Yabakei 耶馬溪
Since it was autumn and there were so many colourful maple trees around, the place was totally great for pictures!!!

I just decided to use panorama camera to fit (mostly) everything into the picture.

(( phone and cam out to get pics yo ))

There were stalls that sold food mostly fruits, dango or soba noodles. It was really crowded that day as it was a Sunday and the stalls were opened only during the weekends!

I LOVE THOSE MAPLE LEAVES

HAHAHAHA that was the first and (sadly) the only drink I brought from a vending machine throughout the whole trip..

Kyujyu Suspension Bridge

I went on Kyujyu suspension bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges in Japan.

it was just swaying here and there... i found it quite boring... somehow..

same, great for nice pictures too.

actually there wasnt much to see while walking on the bridge it was the maple trees at the ends of the bridge attracted me more??

so the admission ticket came with a free cone of ice cream

-eating ice cream in the cold was fun ok-

Soba making

made and ate our own soba noodles, right from the process of kneading the flour to cutting of noodles!

my hands turned out really disgusting so much flour was stuck to it that it looks like my skin

that was a really nice lunch ^^

Kikuchi Gorge 菊池渓谷

there were maple leaves on the ground everywhere, plus it just rained. we were walking on some sort of wet leaves carpet thingy...

collected 'mountain water'! okay more like spring water eheh

my mom wanted to take a selfie so i destroyed it

Takachiho Gorge 高千穂峡

visting 2 gorges day after day? but takachiho gorge is really beautiful

Takachiho Gorge was REALLY beautiful i swear. so apparently the cliffs were made from slow forming of volcanic basalt columns. it sounds really geography-ish, but the sceneries were nice too!

there was this garden-like thingy (there were many many ponds and trees around) which was also looks really scenic to me since the pond forms a reflection of the maple trees!

yup and had lunch there too!

the serving size of food in Japan is like HUGE omg but they are still so slim o_o

Mount Aso 阿蘇山

took the ropeway up to Mount Aso's crater!

so apparently it was also kinda dangerous near the crater as the volcanic gas (sulfur dioxide) is not good for health.

well. it was more of a horrible smell like farts and shit and more shit ugh.

plus it was really cold up there!

the stench was too horrible i even ran off to get some fresh air before going back with a wet tissue.

but actually it didnt really help LOL.

it was sooooo cold my fingers were so numb when i was using my phone that i was so afraid of dropping it!

the bus driver allowed us to alight and take more pictures when we were going back

Kumamoto Castle 熊本城

visited Kumamoto Castle (reconstructed)

okay so apparently there were 6 storeys in the castle museum but one floor was really high when i reached the rooftop on the 6th floor it looked something like this -

Had unadon ( unagi bowl ) for lunch!

i do not wish to elaborate on my lunch

okay the unagi bowl was nice but there were also many bones in the unagi :(

after i ate it had stomachache LOL??

Senganen Garden 仙巌園

it's just a Japanese style garden.

went fruit picking

spotted this really cute dog!

took the JR train from Kagoshima to Hakata

From Hakata we took the subway to Tenjin for shopping!

But I only stayed inside Daimaru LOL went to the basement to see if there was any food to buy.

We walked to the shopping mall Canal City for more shopping and dinner!

there were some sort of food stalls around the area

the guide recommended Ramen Stadium, it was this floor where all the stalls sold ramen and you can just choose which stall you want to have ramen from

ordering food from a machine was really cool

my mom took this picture LOL ideky

cha-shu ramen^^

Nagasaki

I extended my stay in Kyushu and went to Nagasaki by shinkansen!

took the tram to travel around.

every ride regardless of distance is 200yen, but of course we bought the all day pass which is so much more worth if you are going to travel around

nagasaki atomic bomb park

yes and also visited Nagasaki atomic bomb museum.

oh my gosh this wall clock will just make people sad idk how to explain it but the clock has like a huge meaning behind it..

Shin-chi Chinatown

went to chinatown for lunch

okay ordering the food was a really huge dilemma. we thought that the restaurant workers in chinatown at knew how to speak chinese but WE WERE WRONG the person who served us was just jap, jap, jap sigh but anyway the food came quick and it was delicious too.

crab with eggs

tried Champon ちゃんぽん for the first time

it's the regional dish of Nagasaki!

ICE CREAM IN THE COLD

okay we wanted to enter Confucious temple but had to pay some admission fee like why the hell do we need to pay just to enter the temple?! so apparently there was a museum in there too =="

Hill?

oh my gosh someone has to seriously tell me whats the name of the hill! all i can say is that Oura Catholic Church, the oldest and only wooden church in Japan is on this hill but i'm still wondering whats the name of the hill

This place certainly doesnt look like Japan HAHAHA but Glover Garden is on the top of the hill so many tourists and even Japanese students go there after school to visit this place. There are many souvenir stores there too. Since Nagasaki is also famous for its castella cakes, the shops there sell them too!

ugh we were like already at the top of the hill where Glover Garden is, i still cant get over the fact that we didnt actually go inside!!! The garden seemed really interesting and western-style and the admission fee was only 100 yen?! My mom said we just spent too much time at the atomic bomb museum and we just didnt have the time...

Dejima 出島

i think we were just wasting our admission fee there, i dont think everyone really enjoyed it like being all enthu and stuff HAHAHAH

Mount Inasa 稲佐山

took the ropeway up to Mount Inasa!

the view up there was just spectacular

Tosu Premium Outlets

a trip aint complete without shopping

pardon my sian face i had to carry my really-heavy-backpack

curry udon for lunch!

bought this really cute and mini ice cream from baskin robbins!

when we got back to Tosu JR station we wanted to catch an earlier train back to Hakata so we could check into our hotel earlier. sigh but it seems like a baseball game at the stadium had just ended and seriously LOTS AND LOTS of people were just hurrying to the railway station. it's most probably impossible to enter the train T_T

so we just decided to hang around Tosu for a while...

champon again. this time it's つけちゃんぽん !

okay so the bad thing about being able to ONLY READ and understand overly-simple japanese words ( just like me ) is that people will think you speak and understand japanese well but in fact NO!

sigh i told the person tsu ke champon, he thought i knew japanese and just like ask me stuff it sounded so chim (more like gibberish to me) and i was just dumbfounded like 'huh???'.

and my parents laughed at me. they couldnt stop laughing walao.

he was just asking me the soup base. phew.

while walking to Tosu JR station we saw an anime cosplayer!

After getting off at Hakata station my mom said that if we took the subway to the hotel we had to walk so in the end we took a bus as it was more direct? GREAT, after getting onto the bus the bus driver told us that the trip to the hotel ( Hilton Seahawk Hotel ) will take really long, around 1 hour.

But we couldnt do anything as the bus already left the bus stop so we just decided to enjoy the view of the city for 1 hour. There was this Japanese guy who speaks english too I guess he understood our problem and he actually even offered to take us to a nearby subway station so that we could take the subway and save some time. We just decided not to trouble him plus we probably wont know how to walk back to the hotel from the subway station.

Japanese people are really friendly and kind!