Japan 2023 Day 11: Kokura

Woke up to see Nakama Yukie and her plastic face winning best mother award on tv. This is why awards in Japan don't mean anything. How can anyone accept this 'award' with a straight face?

Kokura is just north of Fukuoka and when I mention Kokura, Japanese all say its where the yakuza are.

My main reason for Kokura is that there is a manga museum and and I wanted to be able to get back to Fukuoka quickly for dinner.

Kokura station. 

NHK building with Domo-kun. 

Road to Kokura castle. 

Kokura castle. 

Gardens next to the castle.

Entrance to castle with one guy cosplaying if you want to take a picture with him.

Statue of Kojiro vs Miyamoto outside of castle.

Miniatures in the castle. I really like the depiction of how life would be like back in the day.

Another miniature.

Old samurai armour.

Drawing of tiger from back in the day. Very different from your typical ancient Japanese art.

Kokura castle is the 6th highest castle in Japan with Osakajo being number 1. I have been no Nagoya but never to Nagoya castle. 

Musashi jumping up to what Kojiro.

I think this is Kokura Tanga market. Lot of cheap food including sushi.

Bought two kani cream croquete.

The manga museum is at this place called Aruaru City.

WTF, this place has a Surugaya, Mandarake, Gee! store, Rashinban, MelonBooks, Gamers and maidreaming? Have I gone to heaven? Kagoshima was a bit disappointing in terms of gaming/subculture so this is amazing! I guess Kokura is really the second biggest city in Kyushu.

Cafe with Kimetsu no Yaiba exhibits.

More Kimatesu no Yaiba which I have tried twice to get into.

Don't think I can afford Lunar on GBA.

Entrance to manga museum. No photography allowed. It is a shrine to Matsumoto Leiji and has a manga library at the end. You can pay a cheap fee to have access to the library for the whole year. The manga library is the type of manga room I would want if I won the lottery. They had a row of the most influential manga from olden days to today and it was missing Berserk which I am not happy about.

Captain Harlock. I tried to rewatch it but couldn't get into it. I watched the butchered American version when I was a child where they combined it with another anime. Should give it another go one day.

Went to self proclaimed tabelog no 1 tonkotsu ramen Gyorantei. Tabelog is a good site to look for place to eat in Japan because the ratings are strict and anything above 3.5 stars should be pretty good.

Underwhelming.

Next stop was Mojiko, the other tourist destination in Kokura.

Its just a waterfront with old western buildings and some shops.

I think I am over waterfronts and old western buildings.

Feels like Kobe Harbourland. Meh. Could not wait to get back.

My shopping for the day. Decided to head back to Fukuoka to meet up with Ricco for dinner. I don't think there are any readers left from 11 years ago. Ricco is not my first Japanese friend, but she is my first Japanese language exchange friend and really helped me with my Japanese back when I could not make sentences and introduced me to other Japanese friends.

I have stayed at her place twice and she has taken time to show me around it has been 8 years since I saw her but we have kept in touch. I sent her a message on LINE in the morning to confirm all is good good but the message was unread all day and I was thinking something was wrong. 

6.30pm I get an email from her asking if I can see her email and that her LINE was not working! I was surprised she had my email but I think we did not use LINE back in the day, only SMS and emails. LINE on her iphone was really stuffed and had an install error when she tried to open it. If she did not have my email I don't know what would have happened. I might have found her phone number in my google contacts and called her.

Ricco couldn't get us yakiniku on Friday night so we lined up at Teppan Gyoza Tetsunabe for about 20 minutes. Convinced her to delete and reinstall LINE and luckily everything come back ok.

So much to catch up on. Ordered beer and tebasaki.

Since it was pretty late they said it was last order ie we could not make additional orders. We were panicking because we were not sure how much gyoza to order and decided to order 8 people's worth of gyoza since we were very hungry. 8 people come out to be two plates of the gyoza pictured above so once plate each. I just managed to finished my plate of gyoza and the rice did not help and Ricco had a few left over. We should have gone with 5-6 people's worth and ordered more variety. Oh well, live and learn. We had more drinks afterwards but it was great to catch up after 8 years!

Japan 2023 Day 10: Kagoshima and Sakurajima

After recovering from Takachiho, it was time to go to Kagoshima at the southern part of Kyushu.

This was my second time in Kagoshima.

The first time was for kurobuta or black pig. This time it is for the volcanic island Sakurajima.

Bought this all day pass and took bus to ferry only the find out that the bus I took was not covered by the pass because it was not a Kagoshima City bus. WTF.

Setting off on ferry. A lot of people travelling by bus and motorbikes.

You can see ash coming up from Sakurajima.

Kagoshima Rebnise basketball B-league team goods at the ferry stop.

I get of the ferry no idea where to go. Half the people are on cars and bikes and I see a sign for a shrine in front.

Ok what else is nearby? I look at the map and there is Sakurajima Dinosaur Park!

On the half hour long walk up windy roads, something was wrong. I did not run into anyone. The roads were bad and no one was around. Something tells me I should not be going to the Dinosaur Park.

And I was right because this Dinosaur Park is completely crap.

WTF is there a tiger and a panda in a Dinosaur Park. I can't believe I wasted 30 minutes getting here and will take 30 minutes going back. That's what I get for not doing any research before going.

Decided to head back and go to the Sakurajima Visitor Centre which I should have done in the first place.

Volcanic rocks at the visitor centre.

Kids in Sakurajima have to wear a hard hat.

Took a short break in the hot foot bath while looking at the sea.

I decided to set on the Yogan Nagisa trail which according to my map is 3km. You can see that blue line in the sky. Probably Ultraman falling back to earth.

Along the trail I came across this dude feeding 3 cats which made me wonder if there are plenty of wild cats in Sakurajima and WTF did I not bring cat food!!!

Cat tree on a hiking trail on volcanic island.

I reach the end of the 3km trail and there is a Karasujima observatory at the end. I go up and see this fella lying down.

So far all cats have run away from me this trip.

Not this fella who comes charging and standing on my lap thinking I have food. Imagine if I had brought churu to Sakurajima.

Unfortunately I had to go down or I would miss the bus.

Cat decides to climb down and come to me.

Sorry fella, I really don't have any food.

Sorry fella have to get on the bus.

Loop bus went to Yunohira observatory. My noise itched like crazy after Sakurajima and it would randomly get itchy the week after. Should have worn an N95 mask.

On ferry back to Kagoshima. Sakurajima is huge. I think it is best experienced when staying in Kagoshima or even Sakurajima. Make sure to bring cat food if you go.

Was looking for Kagoshima ramen but this one was closed.

Came across this cat but it ran away.

Decided to try this Kagoshima ramen Garufu.

It was meh. I sort of remember where the the Kagoshima ramen place I ate at long time ago was but it was too far away and I was too hungry.

Statues on the street. Human beings back in the day were a lot smaller. Japanese are getting bigger because when I see high school kids, there are a lot of 6 footers.

Went to retrogame shop Book Box.

Statue of Snake but pictures not allowed in the shop. Did not find anything I wanted and some items did not have prices on them. I think I was supposed to check the online shop for the prices.

Went to Junkudo and they already have a book on ChatGPT? I think I found a Sekiro guide here did not buy it because I have finished the game 3 times already. Still I should have bought it because its one of the greatest games ever. Not something I needed but because it is not so easily found I feel like I want it.

I remember the 12 Kingdoms anime as pretty good. Remember the time when isekai anime actually had good stories and weren't just wish fulfilment crap?

Zelda ToTK mechanical heart. I avoided the FOMO and did not buy the game.

I think I caught 2 episodes of this on late night tv. Did not know it was based on a manga. 

Did not know this was a manga as well.

Random arts and crafts market.

On the way back to Kagoshima chuo station.

What I need is kurobuta tonkatsu at tonkatsu Oyama.

I should have ordered the double meat option. Soft and juicy black pork. Yum.

Taking train from Hakata station to Tenjin. I should have stayed next to Hakata station because the train to Tenjin is not JR so it is not covered by the JR pass.

Guess who is on tv?

Doing laundry at hotel. You write your room number on the machine. Most of the time salarymen are very punctual with their laundry.

Famikara from Famima. Needed a break from Famichiki. 

Affair jdorama on tv. Wish I could go to a Famima right now for some hot food. People living in Japan have no idea how good they have it with their conbinis.