The Return Home

Today would be our final morning here in Japan. It has been a few days since we posted anything on the blog, this is due to nothing really note worthy happening with us. After the 6 hour train ride back to Tokyo we have essentially decided to make our last few days as a free days and let anyone do what they want as well as spend these days for us to do all of our remainder shopping. As such there wasn't really any point in posting till today.

Before I begin I should comment on our current lodging. After our last place in Fukuoka, which many of the others had gripes about (I thought it was perfectly fine), we are currently in a nice clean and spacious house. Located north of Ueno and I think just a bit East of where I stayed in Arakawa, the Airbnb fits everyone's criteria with the only negative being a spotty internet signal. We figured the house was designed in a way which blocks off reception as it affects both the wifi router and our phone's data. But on the plus side the owner of the Airbnb is very nice and helpful in making our stay comfortable. She had even brought us bread for breakfast and brought us to see the Sanja Matsuri festival. The festival I had noted on in our planning but the others decided against in the chance we would watch sumo (which of course never happened).

The Sanja Matsuri would be the final highlight for us in our final days here and let us witness the Japanese culture in person as it is happening. The festival happens in the Asakusa area where around 100 local businesses bring out portable shrines to the Sensoji Shrine to get blessings for good fortune for the year. The portable shrines are carried by a number of bearers and paraded through the streets. The atmosphere is great and the bearers were very enthusiastic about it. You can't help but grin as they pass by.

After seeing the festival, we essentially devoted the remainder of our time shopping and spending whatever leftover Japanese Yen we have left. I'm sure Colin will be posting a post-trip entry showing off whatever weird merchandise he ended up getting. I'll be compiling all of my travel maps together to show in a post-trip entry. But with that I'll end this post as we are finishing our repacking to go home.

I would say this trip was pretty good. Definitely better than the second trip as it felt less stressful and less frustrating, more because we learned from our past trip and understood that keeping a large group together wasn't the best idea. Instead this trip we made it so that we can all break up into smaller groups which meant better management and easier to meet everyone's desires. Even with my trip being hijacked midway by my siblings and missing out on Kyoto entirely, I would say it was a pretty good trip. Despite this I think my future trips (and of course there will be) will be in small groups or even a solo trip as I have come to accept that my trip mates are not the most considerate or even socially civilized and being with them for over two weeks is very taxing mentally. But whatever, I still hope to explore northern Japan and will continue to be one of my goals in my bucket list.

Miyajima

Today (the 17th; posting this the day after), we went to Miyajima. It is an island just off of Hiroshima with a temple, known for its unique Torii gate.

The whole temple is built with the tide in mind. It is all elevated. There is a path to the Torii gate that you can only access at low tide.

It also features some very relaxed deer; they did not offer deer crackers here, so they were a lot more laid back and did not harass people for food.

Here is one eating a pamphlet. For some reason, my images are not rotating properly.

We also got some okonomiyaki. Here is it being cooked.

And here they are at our table. The hot plate is mostly just to keep them warm, as they are already cooked at this point.

And we went to grab a few quick shots of the Atomic Bomb Dome. I really liked the reflection on the water from this angle.

Torii at Sea

Today will be our last day in Fukuoka. And that also means we are entering our final leg of the trip. And from here we will be travel halfway across the country back to Tokyo. This will be a 6 hour train ride with a transfer inbetween. It's going to be a doozy.

Thankfully yesterday the gang decided to do something a bit more relaxing and did a day trip to Hiroshima. Kathleen and Marise split off from the rest of us while we took the shinkansen to the city of Hiroshima. There we decided to make the island of Itsukushima as our main focus as we had skipped it last trip.

The island was a place where the original adventurers had visited on our first time 4 years ago but at the time we had crammed it into the very end of our Hiroshima visit that time. Which resulted in us rushing through the island.

On the island we visited the main attraction, the Itsukushima Shrine. Famous for the floating Torii gate, the location is known as a holy shinto ground. At low tide, one is able to walk up to the giant Torii gate but on both our trips we had only visited during high tide. The Shrine itself is also home to a famous Noh Theatre where plays are done throughout the year.

After going through the shrine, the group decided it was time to eat all street vendor food the area can off. So we went through the souvenir street where all the shops sold some sort of merchandise that tourists overpay for. There we would end up eating oysters, famous manjus, famous manjus that are deep fried, sweet potato ice cream, Hiroshima Cola and matcha ice cream cornets. I'm surprised we were still hungry afterwards.

From there we took the ferry back to the main island and journeyed back to the are of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. While the Peace Memorial has been a highlight in our previous trips, we have decided to pass on the Memorial this time around. The reason we went back is to hunt down the great Hiroshima Okonomiyaki restaurant we found last time.
Nagata-ya differed from the other okonomiyaki restaurant as they cooked the pancakes for us. Aside from that it served the okonomiyaki pancakes Hiroshima style which means instead of lettuce the pancakes were instead made with soba or udon noodles. We hunted this restaurant down as it offered an indepth vegetarian options that allowed Colin and Ambernay to eat their fill.

Once we had our fill, we decided to mill about in the area before going back home to the airbnb. It gave us the opportunity to take some really nice shots of Hiroshima Atomic Dome at sunset.

I'll end today's entry here as we will be leaving soon. From here on I believe we will be spending our last day doing the most touristy thing, buying ALL THE SOUVENIRS.

Solo Exploration

Good morning from Fukuoka. Once again the full band of adventurers have reassembled. Matt, Cristian and Ambernay has once again rejoined of band of merry people to once again go forth and get lost in the country of Japan.

Yesterday would be the day of exploring Fukuoka, seeing how our group was essentially split in half it gave us an opportunity to slow down and do some sight seeing of the city we are in. While it does not have the major international history as its neighbours Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Fukuoka still provided a great place of culture.

Seeing how it was essentially a free day, I went forth alone on a solo venture into the city. It was a felt good being alone, being an introvert sometimes conforming to the will of the group is a bit tiring. I had done a bit of research beforehand and decided to go to the nearby Sumiyoshi Shrine. It wasn't too far and it was on the way to the shopping district.

 So Sumiyoshi Shrine is apparently a shrine to the Sumiyoshi Kami which is the god of fishing and sea faring. Not much of a sailor myself, I was happy to find a smaller shrine there dedicated to the Inari god. Obviously I paid patronage to it.

After walking through the shrine grounds, I decided it was time to do some touristy shopping. So I went to the biggest shopping mall in the city, Canal City.

Basically a giant mall composed of 5 different buildings, they are connected via pathways and bridges between the structures. Many of the shops were international brands and provided many different styles. I didn't buy anything.

Perhaps it was due to it being midday but the mall itself was pretty quiet when I walked through. After passing through I decided to stop by a nearby park and killed some time there.

The peace and quiet was nice, I got to admire the greenery as well as the people around me. It would be a nice life to have living in this city. But alas I couldn't stay in peace as my stomach rumbled and my geeky impulse tingled. So I decided it was time for me to shop shop shop!

Mandarake, Book Off, Tsutaya, Animate. I hit up all the shops that curtails to the geeky demography. Midway in my venture, I met up with Colin at Mandarake where he ended up stockpiling a bunch of Tohou and Vocaloid music soundtracks. From there we split off again as I decided to wait for Matt to
return from Nagasaki as he wanted to do some shopping himself.


While trying to find Matt, I decided to the fastest way was to meet him halfway in the subway. So I took the closest subway entrance I saw and found myself in a large underground shopping arcade. Not only was the arcade stylish but it was full of people passing through. Hard to believe this existed under the city. Problem was that the arcade lead me to a different subway station from the one Matt exited, so I ended up retracing my path before I found him. Once I found him I proceeded to convince Matt to spend all of his cash on manga and curry. Needless to say the three original adventurers ended up buying a large amount of purchases each.

And that would end the adventures of yesterday. Now tomorrow is today, and today is now. Kathleen and Marise has decided to go on their own adventure. Which leaves Cristian, Ambernay, Colin, Matt and I to go to Hiroshima and Miyajima.

Alone in Fukuoka

Today was a pretty quiet day for me. Everyone was split up; Marise and Kathleen went to an aquarium, Cristian, Ambernay, and Matt were in Nagasaki, and Bram and I both did our own thing.

I pretty much just went shopping; I went to a Don Quijote, a luggage store (for a duffel bag), and a Mandarake. I met up with Bram briefly at the Mandarake, but was alone for the rest of the time.

A garden in a park that I passed by,

Solemn Respect

Good morning from Fukuoka! This would be Day 16 of our journey in Japan. As you may have read, yesterday we all decided to do a day trip to Nagasaki. Those who have followed our previous trips would know that we had visited the city during our second trip. There we paid our respects at the Nagasaki Peace Park and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb museum.

Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki was one of the two cities in history that got an atomic bomb dropped on it. And like Hiroshima, the entire city was devastated by the bomb. In the many years after the city rebuilt itself and is now one of the major cities in the country.

Like our previous trip to Nagasaki, the Atomic Bomb museum gave off a solemn reminder of the suffering and effects caused by the Bomb. While the museum has a melancholic effect on us it also makes us hope for a time when atomic weapons are all disposed of.

Following the museum, we went to visit the Peace Park where "that guy" resided. Upon arrival we were greeted by large groups of students where were holding a peace presentation at the statue. It looked like they had rehearsed the presentation to pay respect to those who had died and suffered from the Bomb.

With the Park and Museum done, we decided to go on to do some happier things so we went to visit the city's shopping area. There we found a small restaurant that served Italian food. It served as a nice light lunch and was pretty tasty. We ended up doing our usual geeky thing and visited the local Animate and Tsutaya stores. While I am sure the city offered many other attractions and landmarks,
we were all hoping to just head back to the apartment. The train ride from Fukuoka to Nagasaki isn't too bad but it was still 2 hours. At this point Matt, Cristian and Ambernay split off from us as they had decided to stay a night in Nagasaki, while the rest of us journeyed back to Fukuoka. Today is essentially a free day for all of us. So I'm going to do a bit of exploring and much delayed shopping.