Kyushu

For the last two days, we were back in volcano land, exploring the beauty around Mount Aso, another active volcano on our trip. For accommodation, we enjoyed two nights at two different ryokans, the traditional Japanese guest houses. If you ever come to Japan, staying at a ryokan should definitely be on your checklist. One … Read more

Down the windy mountain roads we made it to the coast for our next stop in Miyazaki. It is really fascinating how, within just a couple of hours, we can go from the foggy mountains to the tropical paradise of the east coast of Kyushu. Palm trees, coastal shrines, and relaxed surfer towns. The saying … Read more

Road trip time! We picked up our very own K-car, mastered driving on the left, made a pit stop on our beloved volcano, and headed to Kirishima Onsen for our first ryokan stay of the trip. Steve spent most of the first driving day suspiciously anxious, successfully convincing Jess that it was all about navigating … Read more

While planning for this trip, Steve could not miss the chance to make an elaborate budget spreadsheet to get a rough idea of what the whole trip would cost. One of the line items to budget for, of course, was activities. Although, we noticed that we had overestimated this budget by quite a margin, since … Read more

It is well known that Japan loves its mascots. Almost every city has one, but it doesn’t stop there: trains, stations, even transport cards. On the latter, JR (Japan Railways) is trying to retire the very famous Suica penguin and to replace it with a new one, facing a lot of backlash from the public … Read more

…at least according to the “World Night View Summit”, which deemed the view from Mount Inasa, one of the mountains surrounding the city, as one of the 3 best night views in the world. Of course, we had to check this out to improve our night photography skills and test out the new mini tripod, … Read more

Not literally, of course. Fukuoka, our first big city in Japan, can be translated to “fortunate hill”, even though there is no hill anywhere in the city. It was simply named as such by the Daimyō (the feudal lord back then) because he missed his hometown where he grew up. This is one of many … Read more

After what felt like a never-ending game of waiting for the ferry to leave Busan port, we finally made it to Japan. For reasons unknown to us, they make you check in for the ferry up to four hours before departure time. This, combined with a two-hour delay, gave us more than enough time to … Read more