Trains, onsen....more trains, more onsen! Might have taken some flights too...

[rbjhan]

Thanks for your reply. I’m no fan of crowds at all, so we will spend the extra time in Beppu. We have booked a lovely hotel, highly rated with in house onsens that people write very positive review for. I think that will be better for us.

edit for typos

You know about the sand baths in Beppu? I've tried one before and quite a unique experience.

 

[Seat0B]

You know about the sand baths in Beppu? I've tried one before and quite a unique experience.

Yes I’ve been reading about that. Sounds like a good experience. Do they give you a yukata to wear in the sand or do you need your own swimwear? We don’t usually take swimwear for a winter trip to Japan.

 

[rbjhan]

Morning soak in the indoor bath and rotenburo, then my own (coz shower...).

Breakfast was buffet style here, which I very much prefer over Japanese ones!
View from my table. No one sat outside coz it was freezing...


Checked out, they drop me off at the bus stop few mins away.
Of course the shops were full of Kumamon! Didn't buy any here since I only had a weekender, regret it now...



Bus was quite empty when I got on (this was one stop ahead of Kurokawa onsen), but filled up in Kurokawa. This was a Saturday though.


Almost at Aso!

 

[rbjhan]

Yes I’ve been reading about that. Sounds like a good experience. Do they give you a yukata to wear in the sand or do you need your own swimwear? We don’t usually take swimwear for a winter trip to Japan.

Yukata, I don't believe they do swimwear in general...never seen one.
For example in a mixed bath, generally there will be something provided to female guests...
I might be wrong, but I think the idea is onsen water is clean, so nothing unclean should come in contact....your own things they can't control....

 

[rbjhan]

Arrived at Aso Station close to 12. My onwards journey was on Kawasemi Yamasemi departing 15.52, so I had a few hours to kill...

I've done some research before the trip, but nothing seemed interesting here...since I didn't want to go see the crater...
Spoke to a nice lady at the roadside station, she suggested Aso Shrine, that looked better...

Aso Shrine is said to have 2000 years of history! Definitely the most important shrine in Kumamoto Prefecture.


Unfortunately the 2016 earthquake did some substantial damage to the shrine (that's the same one damaged Kumamoto Castle), so they are still rebuilding.

The Romon completely collapsed during the quake, they were still working on it.


Autumn colours, so pretty.


It's definitely not called a souvenir shop, even though it is.
They had Shuin here, but the printed version, passed.

 

[rbjhan]

Next to the shrine there's a shotengai.
Small, but pretty, and with all the usual tourist shops...


I was hoping to have lunch here but the one and only restaurant had a long queue...
So I opted for this one:


It was in fact a butcher shop with a side business of fast food


They were fantastic!


This being Japan, no eating while walking! Everyone sat there and finished their food.

 

[rbjhan]

Lots of water fountains on the street! Definitely feeling like I have missed a story or two...

 

[rbjhan]

What happened next was a bit ridiculous, so let me see how I can put it in order...

Aso Shrine was about 5k away from Aso Station, I took one local bus to get there, the bus was a bit hot (of course!) but okay.
On my way back, took another bus. This one did in fact go to Aso Station (double checked with the driver before got in), but it was going the long way.
As you can see from the pictures it was a sunny day, outside temp was about 12C only but felt warmer than that. The bus obviously had aircon on (naturally set to 25C), and the bus ride took about 30 mins. I was feeling hot already so took off my puffer jacket, only wearing a long sleeve tee.

After I got off at Aso Station, went into a shop, immediately felt very dizzy...and my face was so hot
OMG can't believe I was having a heat stroke in late November! Quickly went to splash some cold water on my face and grab two bottles of Pocari sweat.



Bought an ice cream, sitting in shade, I was thinking the whole time how ridiculous this thing was...luckily the symptoms were mild...nonetheless quite a big scare!

 

[Seat0B]

Yukata, I don't believe they do swimwear in general...never seen one.
For example in a mixed bath, generally there will be something provided to female guests...
I might be wrong, but I think the idea is onsen water is clean, so nothing unclean should come in contact....your own things they can't control....

Yes thanks I knew all that about Onsen, but wondered what to wear for a sand bath!

 

[rbjhan]

Yes thanks I knew all that about Onsen, but wondered what to wear for a sand bath!

Same thing. It is treated no different than onsen. Other than the actual sand part.

That's why I wrote "in general" I've never seen swimwear, I didn't word it very well, I meant in the sense that they don't even think about wearing swimwear unless going to swim.

 

[rbjhan]

Thank god the station building was cool, because it had doors opening in all directions.
Or maybe the Pocari Sweat worked wonders, who knows...I felt much better when my train came.

Ah yes, the only reason I was there in the first place, Kawasemi Yamasemi!

KAWASEMI YAMASEMI｜JR KYUSHU RAILWAY COMPANY

JR九州の時刻・運賃検索、列車運行情報や駅情報・路線図、車両案内などご案内です。

www.jrkyushu.co.jp

This one was the most difficult to book the whole trip!
Well, first of all it only runs on weekends and public holidays, so competition is always fierce.
Plus, it runs one return trip per day, 2 cars only. Seats are very limited (some other things going on here too, we'll get to it).

As mentioned before, ticket sales opened one month in advance exactly at 10am Japan time. So I log onto JR Kyushu website around 11.45am to check, not opened yet...next thing I knew it's sold out!!


Notice the screenshot was taken at 12.02pm! So yeah less than 2mins for all the seats to be gone.

Nothing else I could do except going back to JR Kyushu everyday and hoping someone cancelled...

That lasted 2.5 weeks, until the day before I left, miracle! THREE seats became available! OMG OMG OMG, never actually thought it would happen...

So holding the train ticket like a winning lottery ticket, I boarded Kawasemi Yamasemi.

 

[rbjhan]

Here it came!


BTW, the name represents two different types of local birds.


My seat was at the very last row of Car 1 Kawasemi. Actually all 3 cancellations were the last row ha ha. All snatched up I might also add...this section was 100% occupied.


There were only half windows in this row. Not complaining though!


And of course this thing, if you've taken special trains in Japan before, surely you have seen it... A must have! just like the stamps

 

[rbjhan]

And here is what I found out onboard, this train was in fact not fully sold!!!
The table seats and counter seats in Kawasemi were empty.






Why? Because these special seats were not sold online. You can only buy them at みどりの窓口 (literally Green Window), tickets offices inside stations...

In Car 1, only rows 1 to 6 are being sold online.


Damn, think about how hard I've tried to get tickets...

 

[rbjhan]

Car 2 Yamasemi, main colour was green.


Again, empty seats！




You guessed it! Only rows 10-13 available online.


Yeah, in total 40 seats available online! No wonder I was having such trouble....

 

[rbjhan]

Rant aside, the train was really pretty wasn't it? I'm very happy I ended up taking this one.
One hour passed so quickly!
Before I knew it we arrived at Kumamoto. Took one last picture.


Other countries don't hold a candle to Japan in terms of trains.

 

[rbjhan]

I was only staying in Kumamoto for one night, so booked The Blossom right outside JR Kumamoto Station, yes the hotel belongs to JR Kyushu.

This was Saturday so hotels were expensive! 17K Yen that's more than what I paid in Ginza Tokyo!
Good thing is the hotel was really nice. Lobby was on 9F


The building wrap around this courtyard, from what I saw they were doing brilliantly in the wedding business


My room


View


Bathroom.
Shower only, because there's public bath

 

[rbjhan]

As you know (or maybe not), Kumamoto Castle was heavily damaged in the 2016 earthquake.
Extensive repair works had been ongoing and is expected to continue for another 10 to 15 years.

Luckily, the main keep is now reopened. And even better, they were doing some special openings in the evening on selected dates, and yes I caught one of them

So quickly freshened up, I set off to see the Castle.

Oh dinner first! Remember I didn't have lunch...and then the bloody heat stroke happened...

There's a Rikyu in Kumamoto! I was never going to say no to gyutan
And to compensate the missing lunch, ordered extra gyutan!

 

[rbjhan]

Kumamoto Castle was very famous in Japan. It was not high on my list though since it's a rebuilt.
I'm into original castles of which there are only 12 - 6 to go!

There were two entry points at the moment. I was following people (lots!) so not sure how but ended up at the north entrance.





Impressive!




Inside though....it's been transformed into a museum....like Osaka Castle or Okayama Castle....sigh
Don't get me wrong, the exhibits were interesting. I just felt that all authenticity was lost.

I really liked this map showing how the different neighbourhoods worked in the old days.

 

[rbjhan]

Samurai gear




Comparison with other famous castles....surprise surprise the 3 largest ones are rebuilts.
Also, Himeji !!!
And how dare they ignore my favourite!!


There's a lift, but priority only.

 

[rbjhan]

While I was on the top level of the main keep, noticed this elevated walkway...hmm, didn't see this one when I came...


So I went searching...Turned out it was the south entrance.
You see, part of the castle grounds are designated National Treasures, it cannot be altered and repair needs to be done the traditional way (the stone walls need to be put back brick by brick exactly as they were and it's gonna take a looooong time! The main keep otoh was a 1950s rebuilt anyways so heritage rules don't apply.)
So they built this walkway around and on top of the collapsed stone walls, allowing access to the castle during construction.

Found my way to the walkway! I reckon this was better than the north entrance