Japan 3.3: A day of rest. Snoopy and foot eating fish. The end of Yufuin

The plan for Yufuin was to have a day of rest before exploring the area.  When looking up the weather report, it showed the third day as rain, so I moved up the outdoor activities.  As a result, last night I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 7:00.  Before going to bed, however, I found a local place that served miso ramen.  I was very happy.

After a long, but only semi successful sleep, I went again to the onsen in the early morning, before laying down for a while to rest.  It was raining and was forecast to rain nonstop throughout the day.  This turned out to be a correct prediction, since it never let up.  Luckily, it was only a drizzle. 

We headed down the main street.  Although it is Monday today, there were still a decent amount of tourists.  The umbrellas made it look like there were slightly more people than there actually was.



We stopped early on for ice cream because of a sign that advertised a honey flavored soft serve ice cream.  What I didn't realize, was that it was mixed with "matcha," a green flavor.  I still do not know what matcha is, but the ice cream was only semi tolerable.  Miles went with a safe vanilla.

After walking for quite a while and maybe looking in some stores, we decided to have lunch at the Snoopy Cafe.  Snoopy cartoons were played behind me, which allowed Miles to watch.  It was then that I realized that we kind of went out of order by going for ice cream first.  I ordered pasta carbonara, which came with consomme soup and a side salad.  My food was excellent.  Miles had a kids dish that featured shrimp tempura, a piece of fried chicken, a sausage, some broccoli, and a big egg draped over fried rice, with some ketchup along the side.  Stephanie had pancakes, sweet red beans, a chestnut, matcha ice cream, and whipped cream.  Everything was themed for Snoopy.



Our next stop was by Miles' request.  The other day we walked past a fish pedicure place.  Miles was interested in trying it, so I figured we'd allow him to give that a go.  He had fifteen minutes with fish of different sizes, that feasted on his dry skin.  It tickled him quite a bit at first, and we had to make sure that he wasn't twisting his feet in a way that would kill any fish, but he got used to it soon enough.



A little farther down the road was a turnoff into Floral Village, a small recreation of a old looking European village.  Each house was themed differently, selling items ranging from all sorts of popcorn to Peter Rabbit to Shaun the Sheep.



In the heart of Floral Village was a cat cafe.  As it was raining, and Miles was excited to go in, we decided to stop here for a while.  The place was themed for Alice in Wonderland.  The cats were extremely friendly and playful.



We looked in a few more shops including a shop that had tons of music boxes.  There was a small museum that recreated Showa era(specifically 1955-1965) streetscapes and rooms.  I had seen a similar museum back in Takayama, so Stephanie went in by herself, as Miles wasn't interested.  After a few minutes, I decided that Miles would probably enjoy it despite his objections, so I sent him in after her.  Apparently, he kept asking for pictures of himself in the different rooms.

As we were headed back, Miles wanted me to take a picture of the clouds and fog covering the mountains.



As we were approaching the turnoff to our hotel, we passed a place advertising a small pastry that was said to have won an award.  We couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but as it was only a dollar or so, I decided to try one out.  Inside, it was translated as a cheesecake, but it was more like a cake cream sauce under a light crust.  It was very good.



Tonight, we will be headed back for more Miso soup and going back to the onsen.  Tomorrow, we leave early in the morning for Unzen Hell.

Japan 3.2: A lake, up a mountain, and making our own chopsticks

Unfortunately, I had a rough night last night, not being able to sleep much past 2:00, due to muscle problems.  Noticing Stephanie's restlessness, I asked her at 5:30 am if she had interest in going into one of the onsen baths.  We let Miles know, and headed down to one of the semi outdoor baths.



We got to watch the daylight emerge as we soothed our muscles.  We left promptly at 7 for Shidaka lake.  The drive led us up a mountain, which allowed a stop at an observation area.



At the lake, Awe walked around its entirety, enjoying the quiet and peacefulness.  There were many people camping around it, with only a few actually awake at this time in the morning.  Miles talked about how he had interest in trying camping some time.



I picked Shidaka because of its location, five minutes away from a ropeway up a local mountain, Tsurumi.



We took the first ride up of the day.  There were only a handful of us on it.  We had the top of the mountain to ourselves.  It was a fifteen minute walk up to the top, and we took the opportunity to try out the numerous small trails giving us views of the different sides.



As we were coming back to the ropeway platform, dozens upon dozens of tourists had come up.  Additionally, a very heavy fog had come up the mountain and obscured all vision in front of us.



We headed back to town and Miles request udon soup for lunch.  I had reserved a 12:00 appointment to make chopsticks, so we took a long walk through the nontouristy part of town, to a shop that handmade chopsticks.



We were given supplies, picked out what design of chopsticks we had interest in making, and were shown through a combination of gestures and google translate, how to make our own chopsticks.  Miles picked chopsticks that looked like a dog or cat's paws.  We had to briefly use a knife, followed by a ton of time with sandpaper, to create the shapes we had chosen.  Then, we used a tool to burn in our names(Miles had to also color in paw prints on his).  The instructor wrote out Miles' name in Japanese, which Miles copied onto his chopsticks.  He was extremely patient and Miles was in awe of what he was able to do.



We took back roads all the way to the local train station.



I had been looking up an incredible looking valley to explore.  The information online, in English, was sparse.  The information that I had found had indicated that a typhoon in September, 2017, had damaged the stairs leading down into the valley, that gave the best views.  The train station had a tourist information desk that I thought would be my best bet to ask someone before driving all the way there for nothing.

Luckily, someone spoke English, and explained that there currently was no way down to the valley, and it really wasn't worth going to right now.  This was disappointing, as it was said to be one of the most beautiful views in Japan.  Oh well.

From there, we walked back to our room and are resting until dinner.  Tomorrow will be our last day in Yufuin, and it is scheduled to rain.

Japan 3.1: A trip to Kyushu

For my third trip to Japan,  I decided to spend some time exploring the southwestern island of Kyushu.  After flying into Tokyo, Miles and I had dinner.  There was a very small udon soup restaurant.  Miles only tried udon soup on the first night of our first trip, but didn't like the thick noodles.  He was willing to try it again and ended up loving it this time. 



After a short wait, we took our final flight, to Fukuoka.  From the airport, it was a quick two subway stops to Hakata Station.  A few steps outside and we were at our hotel.  We left home for a 7:30 am flight and didn't arrive at our hotel til around 11:00 PM.  We went straight to sleep.

The next morning, we exchanged our rail pass certificates for passes, which would allow us unlimited use of the rails starting March 27.  This would save us time needing to wait in line on that day.  AN eight minute walk and we were at our rental car. 

On our way to the small town of Yufuin, we stopped at the Kokonoe Yume Otsurigashi Bridge.  Opening in 2006, at 173 meters high, this bridge is the highest walking only suspension bridge in Japan.  The bridge shook, which didn't thrill me, but I shut off the thinking portion of my brain and walked across and back.  There were two waterfalls in the distance.



I picked Yuifen for our first location because it seemed like a cute, small town, that would have things to see as well as be a relaxing place to recover from jetlag.  We are staying at a ryokan that is unique in that it has three onsen hot springs, which are all private use and for the family.  You lock the door once you go in and it is all yours.  Our room is quite spacious and has a private bathroom.



After checking in, we walked through the main street in town, stopping to look at the inside and outside of shops that caught our attention.



Toward the end of the street, we veered toward a small lake at the end of town, and then took some of the backstreets home.



We finished off the night by finding a ramen restaurant.  All three of us tried the bean sprout ramen.  It was very good, but tasted a bit different than the miso ramen that we had had on our previous visit.  I asked the cook if it was of the shio(salt) or shuyo(soy sauce) variant.  It was shio.  Two down and one to go.  We went to bed very early.