Kyushu 2023 - Breakfast and Train Watching at Hakata Station

Next morning we were checking out from Fukuoka to head to our next destination. But first, breakfast. I had a Kansai flavoured udon cup noodle, cause it's cheaper to eat these kinda food here than at home. THe cup noodle came with some yuzu flavoured chilli flakes too. I love stuff like these. Free green tea curtesy of the hotel.

For some reason, I needed a dessert for my breakfast too, so I had an apple flavoured canele. These snacks are rather cheap as compared to the real thing sold in bakeries. I don't understand why I can't find these anywhere else outside of Japan. It's just a small luxury that makes your day better. 

As a thank you to the hotel and the room cleaner, we left some snacks for them. For some reason, I have resorted to leaving local snacks from where I came from as a thank you gift to almost everywhere I stay in Japan. Usually it's one snack from Malaysia (Popo muruku from Penang), and one snack from Singapore (Sweet and spicy tapioca) since my husband is from Singapore. I have to be politically correct, lol. Even when I gift people bak kut teh spice, it has to be one from each country. And I like to follow up later which one is nicer for them. It's just a small fun gesture, and it often bring smiles to people if I gave them directly. But these days, I just left them in the hotel room with a thank you note.

After checking out, we head to Hakata Station. We were going to catch a train from here to a small town called Yufuin. As we were pretty early, we spend almost an hour inside the station just train watching. You might think this is super boring, but not for me! And especially not in Japan where there are just so many types of train to watch! I am always amazed how well  maintained trains are here, and how many unique type of trains there are. What a joy to travel around Japan in these.

So we managed to see this Discovery Kyushu train. I don't think this is the same as the Seven Star Kyushu sight seeing train though. It does look so classic. Later on I learned that the 7Star train tickets are ridiculously hard to get, relying even on a ballot or lottery system to get your hand on the tickets. It's a 7 days around Kyushu luxury train.

Although I wouldn't mind travelling on a luxury train once in my life, I think I would be quite happy to travelling on this classic black and gold one above.

There were also other more local looking train like this white one. Love the bird logo design on the train. 

Or this super bright blue coloured train pulling into the station. It looks like a local train too.

There are many trains in Japan, but some are just maybe 2 carriage long, and goes to some remote route. It's still fun. I can't wait to start using my Kyushu 7 days JR Pass which I've gotten for this trip. But I will save that for later. I've paid separately for the next train we were about to take, even paying a special booking fees from overseas just to ensure I got the tickets. The problem with me is, I value experience more than money, so I thought it was worth it to secure the ticket to this special train. Read more about it in the next upcoming post!