Kyushu 2023 - Kagoshima Music Shop and Dinner

 

On our way back from Ibusuki, we ended up in Kagoshima JR Station in the early evening, so we had time to browse around the mall nearby. We found a music shop and I went in to looked at all my favourite musicians! Here's my number one rock band in Japan, OneOKRock. I actually prefer their older Japanese tracks. Nowadays they have gone more international, so there are more English tracks, and more pop in nature than the old raw rock music. Still, I think their lead singer has such a beautiful voice! I've been to their concert twice in my life so far. The first was just awesome, but in the second concert I felt that I'm too old now as their crowd is sooooo young!

Another band I really like is Southern All Star, specifically just the voice of the lead singer Keisuke Kuwata. Interestingly, he is actually of Korean decent instead of Japanese. But I think his voice is so darn sexy. Been listening to their songs since I was in university! I tried watching their concern on Netflix once, but the songs were just too old for me! Hahahahaha. 

A tribute to Sakamoto who passed away just around that time I was in Japan. 

And finally for dinner! Steak of course! Yay! I love it when my husband allows me to enter a steak store. Cause I know he doesn't really appreciate steak much. Where else if we went into a seafood store, we both can enjoy the fish. So I guess it's a sacrifice for him to go into a steak store with me? Looking at the price of the dish now, I am wondering why isn't everything expensive to me then? Ah, that's cause in this trip I was still working and drawing a salary! 

Above is my order. It came with a round hot stone at the side.

This one is my husband's. It has a raw egg in the middle to give you that creamy silky taste and texture of the beef slides when you tip it i yolk. 

And this is how I brown the sides of my steak up to my liking. I love the aroma that comes out of it, as well as the oil and juice of a steak. I don't know why, but I extremely love eating medium rare steak. I think the juice and oil of the meat is just so tasty! I thought to myself why I can't be a vegetarian, and steak came up as the number one reason. Which is weird cause I don't really eat it that often. On a good week, maybe once a week? But sometimes I go months without eating it.

After dinner, we wander back to our hotel and have an early night. Got lots of train transfer the next day after we checked out. Here are our tickets! We are headed to our last stop before going back to Hakata. We are going to Nagasaki! 

Kyushu 2023 - Kumamoto to Kagoshima via Train

 

Last morning at the Super Lohas hotel here in Kumamoto. Gotta load up on the free breakfast as the next hotel doesn't comes with breakfast. Gotta alternate between good and average hotels for those longer duration travel. Although it does kinda brings you down when you down grade your lifestyle, even if for a short while..... anyway.

Making our way to the JR station, our train was not until later morning or noon time. So we got plenty of time to actually browse the mall. I headed for the bookstore. I love Japanese bookstores, as well as the variety of books I can find there. They have pretty unique books like day hikes from train station all over Japan, to slide of life books written by seniors, some as old as over 100! I especially like their lifestyle books and budgeting books. Even when I couldn't understand them, I bought them cause they were so calm to look at. Now that I can read a little bit, I made it a point to always buy some books back from Japan whenever I visit. 

There was again, Murakami books on sale here. Sorry, my level of Japanese is not up to novel standard yet. The best I could do is manga for kids :P

I was interested in this 3000yen budgeting book. But I couldn't see how much it cost, or perhaps I took a photo so that I can look for it closer to the last city we were visiting before leaving Japan. 

Books on Japanese culture also caught my attention. Basically, I am drawn to almost all the Non-Fiction books here. They are all so pretty! I wish I could read everything, or buy everything I want back. But I have so much unread Japanese book at home as it is already. Enough to last me a life time! Especially since they are non-fiction, you kinda have to use them. 

Lunch break before our train ride out of town. There was a big food court at the top floor of the mall. Someone had takoyaki. 

I wanted to have something very Japanese, so I was eyeing this crepes shop. Since I just had a free buffet breakfast from our hotel, I wasn't looking for a full set lunch. I just wanted something fun to eat, yet very Japanese. Yeah, I settle for crepes. You know why? Cause if you visit Tokyo, and went to Shibuya or Harujuku area, you'll see all these young ladies queueing up and eating crepes. And I've always wanted to try it, but I wasn't that financially willing then. Now as I grow older and wiser, it was time to live!

Ah, so pretty! And so many choices!

Me with my crepes! Happy. I might have gotten banana chocolate, which is my favourite combination of dessert toast, or maybe strawberries? I think it came with a coffee set too, why else would I paid extra for coffee, right? Lol. That's my guess anyway. It's been more than 2 years since I blog this! I can't imagine the day I would blog about my other long forgotten adventures in other countries! I have some maybe 10 years or older still waiting to get blog!

After our light lunch, we head to the train platform to wait for our train.

My faithful luggage. 2025, and I'm still travelling with it. I got this luggage when I joint a Japanese bank since I was expecting a lot of business trip. That was in 2015? So the bag is now 10 years old! I've changed the wheels, and even the handle before. There are dents on it (curtesy of Vietnam Airlines), and a crack few years back (probably from one of my solo trip), and recently I broke both the handles while I was about to start my Scotland trip! But I managed to survive the trip with a luggage belt, and that is how it will be until it is totally non-useable. Frankly, I can't bare the thought of parting with it. It's like my travelling partner now. 

Arrival of our train. Our first bullet train ride! Excited!

My ticket with the date time stamp of the ride for my souvenir shot.

And off we went on our next city!

Kyushu 2023 - Kumamoto Castle Exhibition

 

As promised, one post on the cool exhibition in Kumamoto Castle. No explanation need, but it sure would helped if you read a bit of Japanese :)

Here is a section on warfare! Detailed illustration on how to hold a gun/canon in the olden days. Actually the illustration kinda reminded me of Cohen the Barbarian from Discworld novels, lol. Enjoy!

Kyushu 2023 - Kumamoto Castle

 

Our initial plan was to visit Miyazaki Gorge on this day, but as the weather was still rainy, I decided to cancel and change it to a visit to the Kumamoto Castle instead. We made our way after breakfast, and it wasn't too hard to find once we found the castle wall. As we made our way to the main building, we saw a lot of damaged structure along the way. Few years back in 2016, there was a great earthquake here, and there were significant damaged to the city, the country side, and the castle. 

Restoration was still in progress, but the main castle building was opened in 2021. It was significant milestone for the city and it's people as a sign of resistant to the force of mother nature. Somehow, that made me kinda glad that I was visiting the castle on that day. It was my way of showing my support to the city of Kumamoto.

After climbing up a small hill, we finally arrived at the main building. The castle mascot was there to greet visitors too :)

As was the silver fish. I find that most castle have a kind of fish structure on the top of the castle. It was almost like their good luck charm or something. 

Inside the castle, there are more information about these fishes. I saw a similar gold one on my visit to Nagoya Castle too. They kinda looked like monster fish. And it always puzzle me why a fish was chosen to be on top of a castle in a landed area. Perhaps it was because of the close relationship between Japanese people and the sea? Goes to show I don't really read the information available in the castle museum! Lol. Cause I'm pretty sure there is an explanation for it. 

Sigh, since we're in the age of AI, I decided to ask the web and got this answer: 

"The fish-like orca-shaped ornaments, known as shachihoko, adorning the roofs of Japanese castles are mythical creatures believed to protect against fire. These creatures, often depicted with the body of a carp or orca and a lion or tiger head, are thought to control water and rain, thus preventing or extinguishing fires."

Carrying on the tour, I though this dark entrance to the castle was rather medieval. 

And finally, the actual entrance to go inside the castle. I like the cloth hanging over the entrance. I bet one says enter, the other says exit? But since I'm not Japanese, that subtle detail is lost on me!

One of my favourite things to look at inside a museum is how they showcase their culture and information. I must say, I was pretty impressed here. I will have one or two dedicated post later on showing you some of the cool exhibit that I love. 

From the stone castle looking down, I spotted a wooden looking castle on the castle ground too. I though these structures were beautiful, especially among the green landscape after the rain. I wonder if they were guest houses for visiting guest. I wouldn't mind staying in one of these.

And as mentioned in previous post, the view of Kumamoto City from the castle in the morning was just stunning. Clouds hanging in mid mountain. To think that I once paid a morning tour to see this in Alishan and saw nothing. Here, I could just stood there and watch as the clouds move and part as the temperature changes from cool to warm as the sun rises over the horizon. Beautiful Kumamoto :)

Kumamoto Tower caught in this shot. Mystical. 

There was a section in the castle were notable person in Japan left their wishes for the city of Kumamoto and the castle. I didn't think I would know anyone, but I spotted this one name :)  One of my favourite Japanese actor. On it, he wrote "Welcome Back" when he visited the castle after the restoration. Fun fact, part of Rurounin Kenshin was filmed in Kumamoto, hence there was a sense of attachment for him to the place.

In fact, he even has a booked on it, where all profit goes back to the city's restoration. And yup, you guess it, I bought a copy of it as well. I used part of my prize money for it, but it was still supporting a cause!

Kyushu 2023 - Beppu Rainy Morning, Breakfast, and Hell Pass

In the morning when we woke up, it was cloudy and drizzling. We do have windows in our room, and it looked out into the hills of Beppu. And because Beppu is a volcanic area, there are perpetual steam rising from random places all over the town and hills. It was quite unique sight for me.  

Here is a zoom in photo from our room. I can't really tell the steam and the rain clouds apart. But I could see a cool bridge in the mountains covered in mist/steam/cloud. It was such a cool sight. Now I can understand when I see anime where the whole village has steam coming out everywhere. It is real after all. This was just the very start of my surreal journey in Kyushu. I saw other surreal sights further along my trip too!

While waiting for the rain to stop, we had our breakfast. Strawberries, cause they were at the end of the season and selling cheap. Milk, cause milk is cheap and delicious here as compared to anything in Singapore where everything is imported. And an onigiri, cause again, it's cheap to eat these here instead of at our home country. Plus I really enjoy all the food here. 

Since the rain won't stop, I also have a cup of coffee and some rice cracker. The brown sugared rice crackers are my favourite. I just love the smell of burned sugar. The coffee is black, just black. Looking at the photo makes me wonder if I should go make myself a cup of coffee now, lol. But it's already 730pm.... Kinda late I guess?

Here's a book I couldn't help myself and bought yesterday. I love Japanese books like these. Simple joy in life. I think I read more Japanese books after I dropped out of my language school than I did while studying there. My vocabulary has increase quite a lot, but mainly on topics about food, money, simple joy in life :P

I also got some stickers from a 100yen shop. They are a lot cheaper to buy here than at home, or even in Taiwan! I love these stupid stickers and I love sticking them all over my journal organiser. I know it's a waste of money, but they bring so much joy to my life. Same goes for Friction Pens refill. I must have spend a fortune on them!

Since I wasn't in Beppu just to spend the whole day in my hotel, rain or shine, by 9am or so, we ventured out towards the Beppu station, a 10 to 15 minutes walk away. I was gonna see all the 7 hells of Beppu even if there was going to be a thunderstorm! Or at least see as many as I could since I was already here. I managed to purchase the 1000yen ticket, which includes a bus pass for the whole day, and tickets to all 7 hells. What a great combination tickets! I love these concepts. I don't know why western countries don't do more of these. 

We had to indicate the date we were gonna use the 1 day bus pass.  And then off we went! Interesting thing was, my husband lost his pass after the first ride, hahahaha. It blew away in the wind. So he had to pay for the bus ride back, which wasn't a lot, but still a shame.

Here's me, walking towards the first entrance to the first Beppu Hell. I didn't know what to expect!