Fri 9/30: We said goodbye to Koryh in Seoul and flew to Fukuoka, Japan, just a short flight away. Japan has recently opened to "guided" visitors, and they don't make it easy to get into the country. We went through a huge Covid process; Anne thinks we walked past about 100 workers before we got to border control. The required app wouldn't let us enter the necessary info, so a nice young man came to our aid. Our guide Kim had flown into Fukuoka two hours before we did, so we three took a taxi to our hotel. She tells us some of our group had to cancel at the last minute due to Hurricane Ian. It'll just be us two and a Canadian mother and daughter for a couple days. They drive on the left side of the street here. We have seen several Pachinko Parlors. We asked Kim to take us to one. She seems a little reluctant. We have about 8 one-nighters, so we pack a small bag for the hotels and leave our suitcases in the bus. We don't need power adapters here; just like home.
Sat 10/1: We've got a 16-passenger bus and a driver named Nakajima, Mitchey for short. Saying 'Ohio' means 'good morning '. There are 2,200 islands that make up Japan, but few are inhabited. Seventy percent of the land is mountainous. Rice is very important here; they only export a small portion to China only for use in certain preparations. They can only grow one crop per year. There are 47 prefectures in Japan. Shinto is the predominant religion, Buddhism is 2nd. We head south to Nagasaki and see the South China Sea. We go to the Nagasaki Peace Park and walk to 'point zero' where the USA dropped the second nuclear bomb August 9, 1945. Nagasaki wasn't the target; some ship yards to the north were. There was fog that morning, and the fliers couldn't be sure where they were dropping it. But a week later, the emperor declared surrender, ending the war. Until recently, the Japanese never knew about the bombing of Pearl Harbor; they only knew that they had been bombed by the USA. We travel on to Dejima where the Portuguese and the Dutch traded with Japan centuries ago. It is a humid 82° today.
Sun 10/2: I forgot to mention that we are wearing masks outside in crowds, inside buildings and in our bus. Some interesting breakfast items: baby bamboo shoots, cooked bitter melon, salmon, various pickled veggies and some tasty folded dumplings. We drive 1-1/2 hours passing beautiful rice , greens and taro fields to get the 30-minute ferry across the Ariake Sea. We've been seeing 7-11 stores again. And McDonald's, sad to say. There's very little flat land. There are 111 active volcanos in Japan. The skies have gotten foggy; we're surrounded by water. After leaving Shimabara and as we approach Kumamoto by ferry we see some farms; they aren't oyster or mussels -- they are seaweed farms. We have a couple hour bus ride through the mountains with very tall evergreens, cedar I think. Baseball and sumo wrestling are the favorite sports in Japan. Our first stop is lunch. Anne took some pictures. It was an experience. We sat on chairs that were maybe 1' off the ground and folded our legs under the very short table. We had fish, chicken, miso soup, rice with fresh ginger, pickled veggies, green noodles with mushrooms, large black beans, more mushrooms and some veggies we didn't recognize. Dessert was a bowl with three small glutinous rice balls in a sweet bean sauce. Very authentic. We walked to a Shinto Sun Goddess shrine inside a pretty park with the Takachiho Gorge. Unfortunately the typhoon two weeks ago destroyed a walkway close to the water. Kim took Anne and Neesha on a walk down into a cave; that path had also been damaged by the typhoon. Anne and I don't usually eat dinner when we're traveling; we like a late lunch and maybe a light snack at night. But tonight we went to a traditional Japanese Kaiseki banquet with fried smelt, miso soup with clams, chicken and mushrooms, rice, egg custard with shrimp, broccoli, corn and mushroom in it. Then we saw a Yokagura Dance Performance with costumed, masked dancers telling a folk tale.
Mon 10/3: This morning we had our first encounter with a Japanese "bathroom" in our hotel. The toilet is in its own room. There's a very deep soaking tub in another room, no shower curtain, with a bit of floor space with a drain and a set of nozzles and handles on the wall. Showering just led to everything getting soaked in the room. Kim later told us that the idea is to stand outside of the tub and cleanse yourself in the shower, then you get into the tub to soak. I encountered my first non-bidet style toilet today at an older train station. We're always getting squirted with hand sanitizer and must wear gloves when we're at the buffet selecting our breakfast and lunch. We have a 2-1/2 hour bus drive through more tunnels, attractive mountains, terraced fields, streams and rivers. Then we're at the sea of Beppu. At the Mt. Takasaki Monkey Park, we see 100 or more Macaque monkeys with their red faces and butts, many of them just youngsters, playing and grooming each other; later they munch on some wheat pellets. Out next stop is to see the Jigoku Meguri, "Boiling Hells", hot springs. The mud makes the water appear blood red. We wander a little further to watch a geyser blow. This whole area has steam vents releasing steam. A stop is made at the former samurai district, and we tour a house and its gardens. It's over 6 hours by bus to get from our location to Hiroshima, our next stop. So, Mitchey drops us at a small train station and starts his long trek; we'll see him tomorrow morning. We first hop on a local Sonic train for an hour, then we switch to a top-speed Shinkansen bullet train to Hiroshima. Right away, you can feel the train flying. They go around 190 miles an hour. We'll visit Hiroshima tomorrow.
Tues 10/4: There were several different foods at breakfast; I can't remember them all, but I did have soybeans with kelp. Anne had some smelt. Almost every day of our trip when we leave our hotel, some of the hotel staff come outside and wave or bow as we drive off. Kim told us her father, as a young Singaporean sailor, met her 17-year old mother in Japan and didn't want to regret living without her. So he asked her to marry him and come live in Singapore. And she did. Kim grew up and later moved to Japan, giving up her Singapore citizenship for Japanese citizenship. She talks about Japan's low birthrate and steps taken to encourage couples to have children. This morning we spend emotional hours at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum. Bells ring in the city at 0815 every day as a reminder of the bomb drop. Unlike Nagasaki, Hiroshima was a target for bombing. While we are in the museum, we get a notification from the US Embassy that North Korea has fired a ballistic missile over northern Japan and that it had landed in the Pacific Ocean. We're about 700 miles away from that area right now, but we are making our way north over the next couple weeks. North Korea is mad that the US, South Korea and Japan are performing military exercises. Kim says that it has been 5 years since NK fired missiles over Japan, and the real target would likely be the USA. BTW, we got the news about 30 minutes before Kim received notification about it. Later we pass some oyster farms in the Seto Inland Sea. Then we take a 10-minute ferry to Miyajima Island and are so very disappointed the vermillion Torii Gate of the Itsukushima Shrine is covered with scaffolding with repairs underway. It's an iconic site, and we've missed it. On the island, some small deer spend time in town, many trying to get snacks from tourists. After a walk through the shrine, we have a lunch of okonomiyaki. On a large griddle, a thin flat pancake is piled high with shredded cabbage and veggies, cooked noodles, topped with two pieces of bacon. After a short time, this pancake and filling is tossed upside down on the griddle and cooked a little longer. Then one egg is broken and made into a flat pancake of its own. The pancake and filling is lifted with a spatula and set on top of the egg pancake. Then the whole thing is lifted onto a plate, brushed with a sweet soy sauce, cut into a couple sections and enjoyed by whoever ordered it. During our two-hour drive, looking at the beautiful water and mountains, Kim tells us about our hot therapeutic bath later this evening. She instructs on our clothing (or lack of it), how to wash prior to the bath, how long to stay in it (no more than 5 minutes). She says we'll just have a tea towel to cover whatever little portion we want covered, and nobody notices that you are nekked! I lost all interest when she said men and women don't soak together...
Wed 10/5: it's raining this morning. We travel east along the southern shore of Seto Inland Sea for two hours. We visit Shikoku Mura Village, an open air museum, followed by a walk around Ritsurin Park, a Japanese landscape masterpiece. In several ponds, we see silver, yellow/gold, white with red, and a rare black ancient koi. If you come to Japan, expect to climb a lot, up stairs, on stones, usually with no hand railings. Later we travel northbound on Seto-ohashi Bridge, a double-tiered bridge, the upper for cars, the lower for trains. It crosses more spectacular scenery, has six spans and took 40 years to complete. Fantastic views. We're at another therapeutic spa in Kurashiki; none of us are soaking tonight.
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