Japan – Page 3 – Where to, Gumshoe?

Beppu (Day 39): Japanese Onsen

April 8, 2016

Today, we caught the train at 9:21am from Hakata Station for Beppu Station and planned on spending the day there. We reserved seats for a train back to Fukuoka at 8:20pm. Beppu is a small town (with a population of ~120,000 people) east of Fukuoka in the Oita Prefecture. It’s known as the onsen capital of Japan with over 2,000 hot springs.

The JR train we took there wasn’t a high speed train so it took about 2 hours (145km away). Tim had downloaded Hockey Wives so we watched that on the train ride and then I slept for the remaining hour. The train we were on was interesting as half way through the ride, we had to turn our chairs around and face the other way (Tim: This happens on trains when the tracks look like “Y”, with the station at the bottom and the incoming and outgoing tracks at the top).

When we arrived at Beppu Station, we went to the information desk to find out more about the Jigokus (known as “Hells”) and onsens (hot spring spas) in the area. We ended up buying a one day bus pass and entrance to all 8 Jigokus for 5,200 JPY = $62.50 ($31.25 CAD/person) for both of us (we got a slight discount for having a JR pass).

We caught the 41 bus to take from Beppu Station up the mountain to an area called Kannawa. Kannawa is home to 6 out of the 8 Jigokus. Each Jigoku is unique in their own way. Going through them all was quite interesting (although some were a lot more interesting than others).

Umi Jigoku
This was the first and my favourite out of the jigokus. This one is called “Sea Hell” in English as the hot spring has a cobalt blue colour, which makes the water look really beautiful. You could feel the hot steam coming from the Jigoku when you passed by, the water is about 98 degrees Celsius and there’s even a bucket of eggs being cooked. Most of the Jigokus sold spring boiled or steamed eggs for around 70 JPY =$0.84 CAD (60 JPY =$0.72 CAD on the street).

As we walked around the beautifully landscaped grounds, we saw a sign for a “leg bath”. We walked over and saw people dipping their feet and legs in a small pool. We joined in and it was really nice and relaxing. The water was very hot and you can tell how far the water came up to our legs as there was a clear white and red distinction. After we dried off, and put our socks and runners back on, our feet felt super comfy and like we were walking on air.

Onnishibozu Jigoku
The second Jigoku is named after mud bubbles. This one was neat but wasn’t as spectacular as the Umi Jigoku. I felt like they got less exciting as we continued on.

Yama Jigoku
The third Jigoku was called the Mountain Hell as the hot spring was against a mountain. This was probably my least favourite out of the 8 Jigokus. You could tell that this Jigoku had to make up for it’s lacklustre display as they had some animals like hippos, peacocks, flamingos, Japanese monkeys and rabbits in fairly small cages on display along with the hot spring.

Kamado Jigoku
The next Jigoku we went to was “Cooking Pot Hell”. This Jigoku wasn’t very fun to visit because there were two Korean tour buses there at the same time so it was unusually loud and the foot bath was packed! The boiling hot spring water was used to steam eggs, steam buns and custard pudding. We tried the eggs here – they had a distinct taste and were actually quite good.

Oniyama Jigoku
This jigoku is called “Mountain Monster Hell”. The monsters are crocodiles. The hot spring water is used to breed crocodiles in Beppu – there are about 80 crocodiles at this Jigoku in cages.

After visiting the first 5 jigokus, we were getting hungry. There were a couple of restaurants down the block so we decided to give one of them a try. I like how Japanese restaurants have plastic food to display their menu, it makes it much easier, especially if they don’t have an English menu. The restaurant we picked was run by (or what looked like) a husband and wife in their 70’s-80’s and their 40 year old son. The husband was manning his stall outside selling steamed eggs and yams while the wife and son were inside in the kitchen. But when the son had to step out for a bit, the husband came inside to help out with customers while she cooked. I ordered a katsu don (pork cutlet and egg on rice) and Tim ordered katsu curry (his favourite!).

Considering this restaurant was in a very touristy location and there was only one other restaurant to compete with it on the block, our expectations weren’t that high, but at the same time, knowing the older lady was cooking was a good sign. When the food came, we were both super happy with everything.

After lunch we went to visit the last Jigoku in Kannawa before taking a bus to go to the remaining two.

Shiraike Jigoku
This Jigoku is also called “White Pond Hell”. It was a very pretty Jigoku with a nice garden surrounding it. It also had aquariums (a bit run down) filled with piranhas and barracudas.

We rushed out of this one pretty quickly since the next bus to get to the other Jigokus was arriving soon and the next one wasn’t for another 40 minutes. We made our way to the next two Jigokus, which were a short bus ride away from the Kannawa area.

After about a 5 minute bus ride further up the mountain, we made it to the last two Jigokus. It was about 4:30pm and we also wanted to check out a traditional Japanese onsen before we had to leave Beppu. The problem with going to an onsen town is that there are a lot of options and with limited reviews in English online, it’s hard to pick. Luckily, the next Jigoku had free WiFi so we were able to do some last minute research.

Chinoike-Jigoku
This jigoku is also called “Blood Pond Hell” because the water looks red (more like a rust colour). This is the oldest of the Jigokus that we visited and also has the coolest waters at around 78 degrees celsius. The clay from this hot spring is used to treat skin disease and is sold here. I was pretty tempted to buy it but didn’t know if it was a gimmick or not (Tim: Unlike the products sold in (Korean) cosmetic stores which are definitely not gimmicks…). This was the last Jigoku we saw that had a foot bath (yay!) (Tim: Double-yay!!).

Tatsumaki-Jigoku
The last jigoku is called “Tornado Hell” because it’s a geyser, not a pond/pool like all the others. The geyser erupts every 30-35 minutes, which is very frequent in comparison to Yellowstone’s “Old Faithful”. They built an enclosure so the water wouldn’t spray everywhere since there are buildings all around. It would’ve been cool if they didn’t have it so we could see how high it would shoot up (Tim: Apparently the signs said without the enclosure, it would go up around 30m).

While waiting for the geyser to erupt, we decided we would to go to a public onsen called Hyotan Onsen. I had seen it on a list of recommended public onsens and the reviews looked decent. Hyotan is located in Kannawa, close to where we were for the other 6 jigokus so we had to go back. We were keeping a close eye on the time because we knew we had to be back at the train station by 8:20pm.

After getting a tad lost while walking to Hyotan (Tim: Dear Map Makers, if you’re not going to point North in the “Up” direction, then please include a frickin’ compass! Oh! And scales would be nice.), we made it there around 5:20pm. We noticed there was a tour bus outside but luckily, the Korean ladies were all leaving. When we arrived inside, we had to take off our shoes and put it in a locker. Similar to Ichiran, there is a ticketing system to pay. We decided to try the sand bath (which are more unique) and go into the public baths.

That’s pretty much all the pictures I have. We aren’t allowed to take our cameras in to the sand bath area or the public baths (for obvious reasons). The sand bath was the only area where Tim and I could be together. We both got changed into our yukatas (we forgot about taking pictures) and headed into the sand bath area.

The sand bath was interesting. There are different areas based on how hot you want your sand to be. We picked the medium sand and started to dig our hole. Once I had a shallow hole dug, Tim shovelled hot sand on to me, covering my whole body except my face and toes. It felt really heavy and hot. You’re supposed to stay under the sand until you’re sweating or as long as you want. Since I was already under the sand, Tim had to shovel sand on himself. He was sweating a lot already from having to shovel sand on me in a sauna-like room. Once I had enough, I shoved sand on to Tim’s arm and put more on top of him. It was an interesting experience, we both said we probably wouldn’t do it again though.

After the sand bath we both went our separate ways into the segregated baths. At first I was a bit shy about being naked around other ladies but looking around, no one cared so I didn’t either (Tim: I had a similar experience. I went from hesitant about the concept to strutting around sans towel in about 10 seconds). When I walked into the bath area, there is an indoor area with several different baths and some massage waterfall fountains, but before you go into the baths, you have to wash up. There is a bathing area with around 20 stations with a mirror, shampoo and soap, and a shower head. You sit down on stools and bath yourself before you go in (Tim: I sprayed and soaped down my stool first). I think we got there at a really good time because there weren’t that many people in the baths, which made it really relaxing. The pools were quite hot, so I wasn’t able to stay in each of them for that long. After checking out all the different indoor pools I went outside. I enjoyed the outdoor one the most, it had a waterfall coming down and rocks all around (Tim: What!? The Men’s side didn’t have a waterfall!). The sun was setting as well, so it was nice and peaceful. It was great for me because there was no one outside when I went, so I was able to enjoy some time to myself for about 15 minutes. There is also a steam room to go to, I went in for about 2 minutes and then I left and sprayed my face with cold water at one of the washing stations (probably not supposed to do that).

(Tim: I spent some time with the waterfall massage fountains. There were about 15 “stations” and when I went in, there were two people already inside. They both looked like they were perhaps in their 60s. One was doing pushups under a waterfall, the other was in a prone position letting the water hit his back. The both were stretched out so that 2-3 waterfalls were hitting them. I started upright, but soon decided to do as the locals do. After one pushup… I decided to follow the other guy instead and I lay prone and let the water work my lower back.)

We spent about 45 to an hour in the baths and came out pretty refreshed. Tim came out of the men’s bath with a huge smile on his face. He enjoyed his “Tim time”. Overall, we were both really happy with Hyotan and our first onsen experience was a success. (Tim: I’m definitely on board the onsen train now).

After feeling relaxed and rejuvenated we made our way back to Beppu Station. We caught a bus, which took about 15-20 minutes to get back to the train station. It was about 7:45pm, so we needed to find a quick bite to eat. There wasn’t much selection around Beppu’s train station and the restaurants inside the station closed at 8pm. We decided to go to Lotteria, which is a Japanese fast food chain.

On the train ride back to Fukuoka, we watched Masterchef Canada together and I fell asleep (as usual). We got back to our hotel around 11pm. It was a long day but a great one. We both enjoyed Beppu and the slow pace of the day. We didn’t get any pictures but from the top of the hill on the bus, you could see all the steam coming out of houses and onsens – it’s quite amazing.

Steps for today: 14,200

Fukuoka (Day 37): Japanese Baseball (Go Hawks!)

April 6, 2016

Today was our first full day in Fukuoka and we were ready to explore the city. The weather was overcast and about 18 degrees celsius, which was perfect weather for walking around. After having ramen last night, the next thing we wanted to have was obviously sushi. One of the first restaurants (highly rated on Trip Advisor) to come up when I Google searched was “Chikae Fukuoka Shop”. Our plan for today was to go there for lunch and walk around the city – a pretty low key day.

Chikae Fukuoka Shop was about an 8 minute walk from our hotel. When we arrived at around 12:30pm, there was a long line up outside. The line was a mixed bag of businessmen in black suits, older Japanese ladies and a few tourists (we seemed like the only North American tourists – most were Korean or from Hong Kong). The line up went fairly quickly and we were in the restaurant in less than 15 minutes. The restaurant is quite large with fish tanks in the middle of the restaurant with counter seating around it as well as tables around the counters. We were lucky to get a seat at the counter so we had a good view of all the fish in the tanks.

At lunch, there were only two lunch sets on the menu, each for 1,400 JPY ($16.90 CAD) – we got one of each. While we ate, we noticed that some locals would order sashimi and the sushi chef would come out of the kitchen, grab the fish out of the tank and chop it up behind the counter and serve it. There are no prices for these fish that we could see, so we just stuck to the lunch sets.

After we finished lunch around 1:30pm, there was no longer a line up outside the restaurant, good to know if we ever come back in the future. We started to walk towards Maizuru Park, where the Fukuoka Castle ruins are. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), the Fukuoka Castle used to be the largest castle in Kyushu. It was subsequently torn down during the Meiji Restoration as it symbolized Japan’s feudal past. Today, it’s a park in the middle of the city with some view points and surrounded with cherry blossom trees. Since Fukuoka is in southern Japan, the cherry blossoms have already bloomed here and are now starting to fall and tree are sprouting green leaves. The views of the city were nice, as we looked to the left, we could see the Ohori Park lake, Fukuoka Tower and Fukuoka Dome – where we were heading later in the afternoon.

As we made our way towards Ohori Park, we passed by the Gokoku Shrine and took some pictures. The area was very quiet and peaceful. I really enjoyed having so many trees surrounding us during our walk – it felt really good to breathe in some fresher air.

Ohori Park was our main destination on our walk, it is Fukuoka’s main park in the centre of the city with a large pond and many small bridges. We sat down on a park bench facing the pond for a bit just to sit and relax. We noticed as we walked around the pond that many people were by themselves and looked like they were doing some self-reflection as well.

After our relaxing stroll around Ohori Park, we made our way to the Fukuoka Dome and Umi no nakamichi Sea Side Park. This walk took about 20 minutes through the city – passing by more canals.

When we got close to the Fukuoka Dome around 4:00pm, we noticed there were a lot of locals heading towards it. The Fukuoka Dome is home to the city’s baseball team, the SoftBank Hawks. We were excited because I had tried to look up a game schedule but their English website only showed their 2015 schedule so we thought we missed out. As baseball is Japan’s most popular sport, we were hoping to catch a game at some point. Once we made it to the top of the stairs, it definitely looked like game day! I read that the Hawks are one of the best teams in the league as they have won the league championship multiple times and are currently the reigning Nippon Professional Baseball League champs (two years running).

We went to the ticket counter and asked for the section in the outfield with the second cheapest seats – 1,000 JPY = $12 CAD. The most expensive tickets we saw on the price list were 60,000 JPY = $72 CAD. The lady at the ticketcounter told us “this section is very excited”, which meant to us that it was likely the team’s supporter section which sounded perfect to us!

We found out the game didn’t start until 6:00pm, but there were already so many people lined up at 4pm to get into the dome as the doors opened at 4:30pm. We decided to walk to Momochi Seaside Park (as planned) that was beside the stadium and come back a bit before the game started to grab food and walk around the concourse.

Momochi Seaside Park was nice to walk around on the “sea wall”. It seemed like this place would be a lot busier during the summer as there were a lot of businesses and shacks that weren’t open. The beach itself had a surprising number of teenagers just hanging out with their shoes off.

We made our way back to the stadium around 5pm and headed in. It turns out you can bring your own food in – which is why so many people had big backpacks and why Family Mart (a convenience store) inside the Hilton was crazy busy. We could’ve brought in our own food but at the same time we wanted to try “Japanese stadium food”. They had MOS Burger, bentos, takoyaki, ramen, and other American stadium food. The prices were typical of a stadium – about 30-40% more than what it would be outside.

We got to our seats and they were better than I expected for 1,000 JPY. We were right beside the main supporter section so every time the Hawks were up at bat, everyone would be standing but when the other team was batting, you could sit down. We got to our seats well before the game started and there were a lot of people already seated and enjoying the pre-game entertainment. The game was a lot of fun mostly due to the songs and chants they had for each player (my favourite was for Yuichi Honda). They would say a bunch of stuff in Japanese and then say the player’s last name repeatedly until they were done. This taught us (or just me) how to pronounce some of their last names properly. It was a lot of fun and it was probably the best $12 CAD we spent this whole trip.

Unfortunately the Hawks lost to the Chiba Lotte Marines 4-3, which is too bad because the Hawks pretty much dominated the game in terms of hits but they weren’t able to convert (they had the bases loaded three times). The Marines, on the other hand, hardly had any hits but got 3 home runs.

What I enjoyed the most wasn’t the baseball game but watching everyone around us having fun while supporting their home team. There wasn’t a “type” of Hawks fun, it was basically everyone (it seemed like everyone in Fukuoka was there) – young and old, men and women, from all walks of life and age (babies to people who look like they’re in their 80s). I find that at most live sporting events in North America, it’s mostly dominated by groups of men and you rarely see large groups of girls or women without any guys, but at this game there were a lot of groups of just women (and they didn’t look like “puck bunny” types).

I’m really happy we “stumbled” upon this game and we were lucky enough to have experienced a Japanese baseball game with some really die hard fans. If only Canucks games were as fun!

After the game was over, we walked back from the stadium to our hotel in about 30 minutes. We didn’t want to bother with going 3 stops on the subway since it was so busy – must have been close to 30,000 people in the stadium all trying to get home. On our way back, we stopped by Lawson’s (Japanese convenience store) to pick up some onigiris to eat as we weren’t that full from the food at the game.

We stayed up really late (until 2am) and decided to just play tomorrow by ear since our plan to go to Nagasaki early didn’t look like it was going to happen.

Steps today: 30,000

Seoul/Fukuoka (Day 36): Welcome to Japan!

April 5, 2016

Our flight to Fukuoka, Japan, was at 2:05pm from Incheon Airport. Instead of taking the airport bus that we had taken from Incheon into Seoul, we planned to take the airport express train (AREX) from Seoul Station. I had read about the AREX, but our hotel as well as other travel bloggers recommended taking the airport bus into the Myeongdong area because you didn’t have to transfer from the AREX to Seoul’s subway lines. But considering we were only one subway stop away from Seoul Station, the process was painless and the journey to the airport was a lot more enjoyable than the airport bus. The only issue I see with taking the subway to get to Seoul Station is that their subway stations have a lot of stairs and not many elevators or even escalators (which is probably why the hotel recommended the bus for most travellers with suitcases). Thank goodness (Tim: or thank practical packing and planning) we both have backpacks or it would have been a very painful walk through the stations.

Once we made it to Seoul Station, we went to buy our airport express tickets. Like Hong Kong Station, you can check into your flight and check in your luggage at the train station (such an awesome system). This is only available for Korean Air, Asiana and Jeju Airlines though. If you are flying on any of these three airlines you get a discount on your train ticket (6,900 KRW = $7.80 CAD instead of 8,000 KRW = $9.00 CAD). But another added perk of checking in at Seoul Station is that there’s also an immigration office which lets you bypass the regular line up when you arrive at Incheon! The other benefits of taking the AREX was that it was shorter than the bus ride by 30 minutes (40 minutes instead of 70 minutes) and there’s free wifi on the train.

Before leaving Seoul, we had our subway cards which had a balance of 800 KRW on it. Since we had gone farther away from our hotel yesterday, it messed with our cost per ride. We weren’t able to just add 200 KRW (a short ride is 1,250 KRW and we had 1,050 KRW balance) as the minimum deposit amount to your card is 1,000 KRW (it’s silly that they don’t let you add any amount you want) (Tim: even the Seoul Subway employee thought we could add 200KRW… he went to try at the machine, as we had already done, and realized he couldn’t). So long story short we both had 800 KRW on our card and didn’t want to get a refund (because there is a 500KRW fee to get the remaining balance refunded). You can use the subway card (“T Money” card) at participating stores and restaurants though (similar to a lot of cities). We ended up going to McDonald’s and each buying a chocolate dipped vanilla cone (for “breakfast”) for 800 KRW (yay!). Tim will have a more detailed blog post about this at some point.

We got to Incheon around 12pm and headed through security and to our gate. We still had to go through customs but we were able to go into a quicker line for both security and customs which was much quicker (Tim: the same line as pilots, flight attendants, etc). Korea has tax free shopping at their stores if you make a purchase of over 30,000 KRW. Since I bought a bunch of stuff from Missha, I had one receipt that qualified (that was stamped at the store). If you ever had to deal with getting your VAT tax back in Europe, getting your tax refund back in Korea is much easier. We found a tax free kiosk, the lady took my receipt, scanned the barcode, scanned my passport and my refund in cash was dispensed. I got back 3,500 KRW for a 57,000 KRW purchase (around 6%, you can get up to 8% depending on what you buy). If you have more expensive items, you need to have the items in your carry on to show them.

When we arrived at our gate, we noticed that it seemed like the average age of passengers flying to Fukuoka from Seoul was around 50 years old.

The flight to Fukuoka was only an hour and twenty minutes, so basically we were in the air for a bit less than an hour. I tried to write my blog post from yesterday on the plane but was only able to write a couple of paragraphs before they brought out a meal (chicken sandwich that wasn’t very appetizing, Tim thought it was tuna and said it was fine to him), cleaned up and then it was time to land.

Fukuoka is one of the closest Japanese cities to South Korea (there are ferries that go between Busan and Fukuoka), which has made it a popular destination for Koreans and Chinese tourists. To be honest, the first time I heard of Fukuoka was on our last trip to Asia, when we were at the Taipei airport and a flight just got in from Fukuoka. When I googled it, it seemed like an interesting, more laid back, Japanese city and it is the birth place of a lot of famous ramen restaurants such as Ippudo and Ichiran.

The Fukuoka airport is quite small. The international and domestic terminals are not connected, but there’s a free shuttle bus that goes between the two terminals. Once we got to the train station (which is at the domestic terminal), we bought our subway cards and loaded some Yen on to it and headed to our hotel.

We’re staying at Hotel MyStays Fukuoka Tenjin, which is about a 3 minute walk from Tenjin Station. The hotel’s location is very convenient – close to the train station as well as a lot of shopping and restaurants. The room itself is small but very clean. We booked this hotel through Expedia and are paying $56 CAD/night. Fukuoka is a lot cheaper than the rest of Japan!

Finally! It was time for our first meal in Japan. Since Fukuoka was our first stop, it was a no brainer that we were having ramen at Ippudo. Ippudo has many international locations, one being in New York City. Up until today, I had only been to the East Village location and thought the ramen was good but it was pricey – at around $16 USD (plus tax and tip) a bowl. The one in New York is a lot fancier with a lot of other menu options besides ramen. Tim’s been to Ippudo in Tokyo and has always said how it was the most amazing ramen he’s ever had (Tim: what I actually say is that I wasn’t the biggest fan of ramen until I tried Ippudo in Tokyo, but the first time I had Ippudo in Tokyo definitely put Ramen on the noodle soup map for me.).

The ramen was delicious and the servers were friendly and courteous. (I love Japan!) We’re not the biggest fans of Korean food in general (Tim: or I have certain body parts that aren’t the biggest fans of Korean food), so eating a bowl of ramen made us so glad we’re finally in Japan.

After dinner we walked around towards the river and canals. Fukuoka is filled with canals and open air food stalls called a “yatais”. I read that yatais were very popular in Japan historically but now they only really exist in Fukuoka. We passed by a row of them but since we had just eaten, we just looked. Most of them served either yakitori (grilled skewers), oden (boiled items), or ramen.

Fukuoka seems to be a very laid back and calm city and is apparently a stark comparison to Tokyo (it’s a nice change of pace from Seoul as well). It’s my first time in Japan and I’m really excited to discover more of it. I love Japanese food and can’t wait to eat my way through Japan (and prepare to starve when we go to Australia) (Tim: we’re not going to starve). While walking through the streets and looking at the different sushi places, I had to stop myself from thinking, “Is this a good place? Are they actually Japanese?” like I would in Vancouver. Looking forward to our time in Japan!

Steps today: 16,000