Kurashiki Bikan: Historical town in Okayama

We selected Kurashiki as our "stopover" between Hiroshima and the Kansai region, mainly because it is a historic city, and we liked how it's just a small town. Kurashiki only requires a half-day trip, so you don't have to stay the night. We stayed with an Airbnb host in the Kurashiki City itself - it was quite difficult to get to, so the host will pick you up from a nearby station. But we loved it because of the homely feel, ability to make new Japanese friends and also the traditional home-cooked breakfast spread the next day! 

Kurashiki Bikan is basically a place where you can just chill and walk around to explore the area. There are many small shops around and a canal flowing through the little town. It is like the "Venice of Japan", as some people call it. The architecture there is from the Edo period, when it used to be warehouses since it was an important rice distribution town. Today, the facade of the warehouses has been preserved but they have transformed into little shops, cafes, restaurants, art galleries etc. 

How to get there: 

Take the Shinkansen to Okayama Station and then take the local train to Kurashiki. From there, Kurashiki Bikan is a short walk away. 

Things to do:

1. Take a gondola ride along the canal

If you really want a taste of Venice in Japan, you can take the gondola ride, which brings you around the area through the canal. We weren't so interested in paying for a boat ride as we preferred to walk on foot!

2. Visit Ohara Art Museum

This is a western fine art museum, which seems pretty out-of-character for a historical town, but it apparently houses an impressive art collection, so if you're into art you might wanna check it out!

3. Chill at Ivy Square

This is a pretty cool European-style square that has a small cafe, fountains etc for people to chill. They also have some souvenir shops. We enjoyed a peach ice cream and muscat wine here! Apparently it used to be a cotton mill. 

6. Take pretty pictures along the street

5. Kojima Jeans Street

I really wanted to go to this street as it's the birthplace of denim in Japan, but alas, it didn't quite fit into our schedule and wasn't really on the way. But if you have time, please go and check it out! It looked pretty cool from what I saw on the internet. 

I think Kurashiki Bikan is basically slightly off-the-path sort of place. There are way less tourists here as it's not a big or famous location, which is why we chose it. It's good to spend the afternoon there just walking around and has a very European yet historically Japan feel to it, so the vibes are very unique! 

Things to do in Hiroshima: Travel Itinerary

This is an extremely overdue post because I went in October 2019 and here we are, more than a year later. Well, since we all can't travel due to COVID-19, let's just do throwbacks of our past travels. After watching the Rugby World Cup (NZ vs Canada) in Oita stadium and touring some parts of the Kyushu region, we went on to Hiroshima. So, here are some of the sights that you can expect to see in Hiroshima, including the one thing they are famous for - atomic bomb memorial. 

1. Shukukeien 

Entrance fee: 260 yen 

It's a nice and quaint little garden that is not too expensive compared to the others, so I thought this was rather worth going to! It's a very good Japanese garden experience, for those who have not been, especially since all these gardens were made in various periods of Japan. I can't identify the differences in the architecture because I'm not familiar with Japanese history but for those who are interested, you'll probably be a lot clearer than I was! I spent most of my time taking photos and admiring nature. 

2. Hiroshima Castle

You need to pay an entrance fee to enter but we didn't want to because we weren't so interested in seeing the inside of the castle, more of just the area around the entrance, which is free. But this is one of the touristy sites you can go to in Hiroshima! 

3. Atomic Bomb Site and Peace Memorial Park

This is what Hiroshima is known for. After studying about it in the history books, I was rather excited to see this in person! It's quite amazing, for the city hall to be bombed directly by the atomic bomb, but still have most of its exterior infrastructure attached (though they did reinforce it to prevent it from crumbling further). I think it's good for them to have created a peace memorial park to let everyone remember the events that happened and that it should not have to reach this sort of stage again. I thought the whole park was well done!

4. Day trip to Miyajima 

Hiroshima is also a good base to do a day trip to Miyajima because you need to take a ferry from Miyajimaguchi, which is within Hiroshima. Check the ferry timings before hand to plan your trip better! Miyajima is really small and you only need a few hours there. We did a hike to Mt Misen - went up by the Momiji Dani route, which is 2.5km and went down by the Daishoin route, which is 3km. The Momiji Dani route contains more stairs, which I find easier to go up by as it's more dangerous to climb down the stone steps, especially if it's damp. The Daishoin route is more gentle and you can see more of the scenery rather than the forest. So doing it this way gets you the best of both worlds. 

There is only one walking street, which is the Old Town walking street, full of touristy restaurants. We chose one of the okonomiyaki restaurants, which wasn't too bad but nothing spectacular. The walking street has other souvenirs and stuff that you can buy. They sell a lot of momiji cakes (which are some small cakes in the shape of an autumn leaf). They also sell some oysters there which were really good!!! I would totally recommend it. 

5. Cycling in Shimanami Kaido

We also used Hiroshima as the base to travel to Shimanami Kaido. This is a cycling route that starts from JR Onomichi station and ends at Imabari station. From Hiroshima, we took the JR Shinkansen to Mihara and changed to the local train to reach Onomichi station. 

There are many bike rentals in Onomichi but you have to reach early, otherwise all the bicycles would have already been rented out. We wanted the electric ones but they were all gone. We ended up paying 1100 yen per bicycle for the whole day, which I felt was pretty worth it. You need to pay a 1100 yen deposit, which you will get back if you return the bicycle in a good shape.

From Onomichi, after renting the bicycle, you'll take the ferry to Mukaishima island and start from there. The ferry costs 100 yen per person and 10 yen for the bicycle. There is no other way to get there. By the time we rented the bicycles and took the ferry, we started our ride at 1040. 

There are multiple islands connected by overhead bridges that you can cycle through on cycling lanes. Going up the overhead bridges can be quite a climb if you're not an experienced cyclist, so feel free to get down and push your bikes up! The islands have small restaurants along the way so you can stop by any one of them to eat. We stopped at Innoshima and had yakisoba and gyu niku udon for lunch! It was a really random restaurant but their prices were cheap and the quality was good! So hit up the locals for recommendations. 

On Ikuchijima island, there is dolce gelato ice cream and a Setoda lemon cake specialty shop so you should try to hit that! I loved the ice cream and the Setoda lemon shop is a very good stopover to get souvenirs specific to the Setoda region. 

If you're cycling for a few days or you want to complete the whole thing, there are some services to bring your luggage across and you can slowly ride the whole thing over a few days and stay over at the different islands. We opted to do it in as a day trip, so we u-turned at the end of Ikuchijima island. We are also seasoned road cyclists going at our leisure pace of about 20km/h. We headed back to Mukaishima to take the ferry back to Onomichi and reached back at around 6pm. 

You can check out this website for more detailed information about cycling through the whole Shimanami Kaido.

Food Recommendations

1. Bakudan

I really loved this spicy sauce tsukemen and would highly recommend everyone to try it! It's very near Don Quijote (the only one in Hiroshima). It's also not super expensive! The spicy sauce definitely gives a kick and the flavours are all on point. 

2. Goemon (second floor of the ASSE departmental store at Hiroshima station)

I loved the flavours of this okonomiyaki because they are slightly different from the usual okonomiyaki. They will add spices and their sauce is not overly salty or sweet, it's just flavourful, which I really enjoyed. I would highly recommend their okonomiyaki! 

3. Yakitori restaurant (15-5 Noboricho, Naka ward, Hiroshima, 730-0016)

We went to this restaurant to eat simply because we wanted to watch the Rugby World Cup and they were showing it on their TV screen! That said, this was a pretty good find. It's a small restaurant but with really good food. Yakitori is generally more expensive but each stick is not that expensive compared to other places.

Rugby World Cup 2019 in Kyushu: Beppu, Oita, Fukuoka

We went to the Kyushu region in October 2019 to soak in the Rugby World Cup fever, and also because we decided to ballot for the New Zealand v Canada game, which was held in Oita Stadium.

This time, we stopped over at 3 cities: Beppu, Oita and Fukuoka. We got the 5 day Northern Kyushu Japan rail pass, which was 10k yen per person. We bought ours from Changi Recommends!

Beppu

Travelling to Beppu from Fukuoka airport:
1. Take bus 2 to Hakata Shinkansen station (260 yen per pax, 500 yen for 2 pax). Tickets can be purchased from the airport tourist information counter, and the ticket will only be placed into the fare box at the end of the trip, NOT at the start!

2. Take the Shinkansen from Hakata to Beppu: You can check and compare the different types of trains. The information boards are pretty clear on which type of Shinkansen it is and whether it stops at Beppu and how long it takes.

For some reason, most things in Beppu were closed the day we arrived, which was rather strange. So, we actually took the train into Oita, which is the next biggest city, to check out the Rugby fanzone area. The fan zones are cool because they have these HUGE screens that allow you to watch the matches live! We ended up watching Scotland v Samoa for awhile.

One of the many huge posters around in Oita!

Funai Castle Ruins

Mt Kuju hiking
This was the highlight of my Beppu trip. I read that the autumn foliage at Mt Kuju is super pretty!

Travelling to Mt Kuju: This was expensive, but it was the only way if you don't drive. Take bus 2 (Kyushu odan bus) from beppu ekimae honmachi stop, which is right outside the train station. It costs 2500 yen per person and takes about 2h to reach the Makinoto pass, which is the start point for the hike. You should reserve beforehand, but otherwise you can just go on the bus and see if there are vacancies. We were fortunate and we had vacancies! Do take note that the road is a bit winding, so if you have motion sickness do bring something to munch on.

We started hiking at around 1040 and finished at around 1450! But we were considered a bit faster than average. Most people take about 5-6 hours to complete, so you need to see your fitness level and how fast you usually take to hike! Because there are different bus timings that you need to meet. We took the 1534 bus out of the Makinoto pass and stopped at Yufuin (it's cheaper that way). We had dinner in yufuin before returning back to Beppu via train, since we had the pass. Note that most things in Yufuin close by 6pm.

Difficulty of Mt Kuju hike: moderate. A normal fitness level would allow you to climb up to the summit. However, a better shoe would help you more than just normal sneakers, because there were many portions where we were treading over rocky terrain. It will be a nice day workout! Also, there was no autumn foliage when we were there ):

Starting out nice and easy - with ice cream and steamed bun!

 One of the typical rocky passes we had to go through

This might be challenging for people who aren't used to it

Always love it when the path opens up!

Multiple signs to go to different summits

No autumn foliage, but still a pretty sight!

View from the Summit

More views from the summit!

Oita 

Rugby World Cup day in Oita: take a train in early because there will be a huge crowd of people doing so! The trains were packed.

We also did an early check in at the hotel and ate an early dinner at Ikinari steak (it's a very good steak chain in Japan!) 

To get to the stadium: There are shuttle buses provided, but the queue was insane so be prepared to wait! We still managed to reach the stadium 1 hour+ earlier than the start time. So, don't ever take the cab because the shuttle buses are free and the cabs had an insane queue too. 

The atmosphere at the stadium was SO GOOD. We thoroughly enjoyed the game even though it was a thrashing match oops. At the end of the match, there was also a long queue for the shuttle bus back and there was a jam at the stop point because everyone was getting down the buses.

Plenty of photo ops throughout Oita

At the stadium!

The tickets are so pretty!

Fukuoka

This isn't our first time in Fukuoka, so we skipped quite a bit of some touristy things and went for things that we really wanted to do.

Marinoa City Outlet: This is quite a large outlet mall with cool Japanese brands (not just the super branded stuff) like Ikka, Earth etc.

Canal City Hakata: We just passed by this, mainly for the food. There are also other shopping malls near Hakata station that are not too bad!

Walking trail: Hakata - Tenjin - Ohori park - Tenjin - Hakata

Ohori park is highly recommended! It's such a nice place for a walk/run.

Stopping for an ice cream break! Japan's soft serves are SO GOOD.

Ohori Park

Managed to catch the sunset there!

That sums up the Kyushu portion of our trip!