A small note about city hotels .. we were expecting rooms to be small. They are. We are in our second hotel now where there isn’t anywhere to put one suitcase, let alone two.

Four nights here is going to be a bit grim. We shall see. On the upside it has an Onsen nd various freebies (laundry, ice cream, ramen).

But I think I’d rather forgotten the hotel hierarchy. We have no status, booked through booking.com nd this was our view in our Hakata hotel.


Yes it’s a concrete wall about 1.5m
away. Surely the worst room??

Booking.com view At least no one can really spy in your room....

For me another reason not to book through OTAs. As a hotel owner I would assign to these person the worst rooms.

Day 6 is a day trip to a place called Kurashiki. A modern city but with a historical centre. Only 20 minutes on the train and a very enjoyable trip.

We were advised to get there relatively early as the “boat trips on the canal” sell out. We needn’t have worried. It was really quiet and the boat trip was a massively over touristy gondola type thing. Not for us.


But the disappointment didn’t spoil the day. It’s a lovely old town - no wires etc full of small handicraft shops. Sadly the art museum and the piggy bank museum were shut. Still plenty of things to mooch around.


Toy museum was closed. What a place!



We headed back to Okanawa late pm for a trip to the castle and gardens. We were too early for most of the gardens as the were brown! But still worth an hour or so.




Plum and cherry blossom out (just) and with the clear blue skies all day, I think I’ve caught the sun. It was only warm not hot (13-14 C)

Steak and beer for dinner. A good day.

Day 7 takes us to Himeji and its famous white heron castle. Famous for being in James Bond and the last Samurai, it is enormous, beautiful and imposing. Amazingly it survived WW2 and has now been rebuilt - painstakingly accurate.





It was a cold grey day so the photos don’t make it as white as it is.

We also visited the nearby gardens which were lovely, albeit still in winter mode. We had a lovely lunch there - for just Ł8. Although we’d seen the place in online guides we were the only westerners so it felt quite unusual. The food was good too.



And then we walked back to the station via a very odd “shopping street” - it felt like we’d gone back in time. And we thought we were done as we got ready to go through the barriers and onto our train But, alas, somewhere in the gardens Mrs ST had lost her purse and BOTH our rail passes.

We tried hard to find the purse but it was not to be despite lots of help from the Gardens’ staff. We explained our predicament via Google translate at the station but sadly nothing doing. We’re going to have to buy individual tickets for our next couple of days. The helpful JR person worked out that we’d each have to pay about Ł50 to complete this part of the trip so no real hardship. A shame and a few bank cards cancelled but it’s not the end of the world.

we celebrated by using the hotel Onsen. Way better than I expected and nearly makes up for tiny room (with free soft drinks, ice creams and ramen after 930pm they have won us over).

Please keep up the TR
Love Japan and it brings back lots of memories.
What a shame about the purse!

It’s such a privilege to be able to travel and gain some sense of insight into the lives of others.

it is 930pm in a downtown hotel. There is a line of people mostly wearing the hotel’s branded sleepwear .. queuing patiently for a bowl of free ramen.




Yes I got some. No I did not wear the uniform but counted about 30 who did. Quite strange.

Free ramen is free ramen.

David

Great TR and photos. Hope the rest of the trip will go smoothly and without any issues or lost items.
I think we may be in Tokyo at the same time

I will!

On the lost purse… five or ten years ago that would have been a big thing. But now lost cards etc are all reported online and Mrs STs phone Wallet will still work so we’re calm about it all.

That said, I’m also surprised at how many places are cash only or where you need to insert a physical card (eg train stations - though here a SUICA digital card seems to be fine going through gates).

Your experiences at Dormy Inn are taking me back. Personally, I prefer the Intergate chain, similar concept but a little more upmarket. I always opt for larger rooms on higher floors. The premium is worth it.

IMHO you missed two highlights in Kyushu. I would choose Nagasaki over Fukuoka and Kurokawa Onsen over Beppu.

Great advice on the hotel front. We knew the rooms would be small and whilst we were agnostic about the brand, we generally couldn’t find rooms bigger than 20m2 in the locations we were after. Perhaps the error was compounded by booking.com.

Also for future readers, our reasoning for Fukuoka Hakata (over Nagasaki) was driven almost entirely by transport convenience. A flight into the city centre from NRT and Hakata is a rail hub. With hindsight, one more day there could have been well spent but it’s not a tourist place at all. I can’t comment on Nagasaki except to say it was on the list … which was very very long.

Day 8. A lazy day and much needed. So not much to report. But more light shopping (constantly amazed at the variety of packaged food … in a very good way), some more onsen relaxing (in two days we haven’t seen another westerner use it). Topped off by more ramen.

We thought we should try supermarket sushi. And we are impressed (certainly at that price Ł5!)

The high quality drinks are also hotel freebies so no complaints here. (Cheapskates I know!)


We have an early ish start in the morning as we head to the art island of Naoshima. We have a room booked at the art hotel there (super lucky as we were able to plan a trip for the one day they had free when we looked in February). And we’re planning on taking only an overnight bag, leaving our cases in the vast numbers of luggage lockers at Okoyama station.

Although the art islands are close to the city, to get there is two trains, a ferry and a (free) hotel bus. We are hoping that the whole trip is about Ł5 but whilst we’ve been using Google maps a lot, we’ve realised it doesn’t cope with Japanese timetables very well. In this case, it said we could leave at 0740 or 1100; whereas in practice the trains and boats are at least hourly. We saw something similar coming back yesterday. Just a reminder that everything you read on the internet isn’t always true

I don’t bet but we are anticipating everything running to time and smoothly.

Japanese are very particular about their food. I think rice balls (onigiri) are their equivalent of Greggs, but healthier and more tasty.
Have you tried the ekiben (Railway bento box) yet? Next time you go for a long Shinkansen ride from a major station go a bit early and browse the offerings you can buy to eat on the train. Not always super cheap and not as good as what you can get in bricks and mortar restaurants, but a fascinating concept well embedded in Japanese culture.

Well our plan to get to Naoshima was solid. A good breakfast, plenty of free lockers at the station (just Ł4 per day) and SUICA (called ICICA here, which confused us for a moment) was good.

So we got to the platform early and in time for the prior train (a “local” one not a “rapid”). We decided to jump on it despite a minor worry that it might get overtaken before the station where we needed to change.

It turned out to be the right call. Our train made it to the interchange a little late and then stopped. Our train was waiting. We boarded. Our train left (about three minutes late) and the “rapid” train was nowhere to be seen. Stuck behind our original train we suspect.

Our new train did not have a happy driver. He was obviously checking the time at every stop and was very slowly making up the deficit
over the 30 minute ride. We made it to Uno two minutes late. Poor driver.






We got to the terminal station and had a five minute walk to the ferry and made it on as the last pair but one.

Phew. (it would have been a 90 minute wait for the next one and like many harbour piers there was zero to do. We didn’t even see a coffee shop though I’m sure one must exist))