I visited western Kyushu with my twin sister this March and wished to share my expertise with Saga. I simply learn that it’s voted one of many least widespread prefectures in Japan, however we had a number of enjoyable. I am going to embody a short description about our different actions in Kyushu. This was our second journey to Japan. I converse and skim a little bit of Japanese however my sister solely is aware of just a few primary phrases.

Our primary itinerary was:

Seoul (2 nights) > flew to Fukuoka (3 nights, day journey to Dazaifu) > prepare to Ureshino (2 nights) > prepare to Nagasaki (2 nights) > prepare to Fukuoka (4 nights, day journeys to Shimonoseki and Mojiko) > JR Beetle ferry to Busan (2 nights) > prepare to Gyeongju (2 nights) > prepare to Seoul (2 nights)

The rationale we flew into Seoul was as a result of on the time we bought tickets (November 2022), Delta was reorganizing its Japanese flights out of Atlanta so the value for flights to Tokyo jumped as much as practically $1800 from the place we dwell. We determined to fly to Seoul because it was less expensive on the time and I had wished to spend a little bit of time in Korea earlier than planning an extended journey there.

If anybody is inquisitive about different components of our journey (I’ll put up a bit later about Shimonoseki and Mojiko since I do not see a lot about them) you may ask me to enter element and I am going to make an extra put up or edit this one.

Day 1 – Yoshinogari Koen (March 21)

After breakfast in Hakata Station, we boarded the Midori-Huis Ten Bosch for Yoshinogari Koen. We began a bit later than I had hoped since we needed to mail a bundle. We arrived round 10 or 10:30 AM.

The gate was not manned, and in accordance with the Google critiques of the station it is a frequent prevalence. This is able to be troublesome for a rail cross holder, so tickets may should be bought when you’ve got a cross. There’s a ticket machine which solely accepts money within the station. (We must always have bought all our tickets for the day in Hakata, however this was my first time with out a rail cross. Lesson discovered.) There have been just a few individuals working within the vacationer info heart downstairs. When one in all them noticed our baggage we had been directed into the workplace the place we had been capable of depart the bags for 200 yen per piece. We got laminated paper slips to reclaim our baggage, although that wasn’t actually mandatory since we had been acknowledged instantly once we returned and our baggage introduced out earlier than I handed the papers again.

It had been raining and drizzling on and off in Fukuoka, and a heavy rain was ongoing once we left the station for the 15-20 min stroll to Yoshinogari Koen. There’s a strolling path which crosses the road twice, however in any other case is protected from vehicles. Useful indicators with Yayoi cartoon individuals tell us what number of meters we had been from the park. We each solely introduced raincoats since we hadn’t anticipated a lot heavy rain in March (Google stated drizzles had been extra frequent in Kyushu this time of yr, which wasn’t fully off base since that was our expertise for the remainder of our time in Kyushu). Upon arrival we had been each fairly moist. After shopping for tickets from the money solely machine (it was about 950 yen for each of us), a park worker wearing Yayoi garments handed me two English maps and defined the park structure in Japanese to a person who had simply arrived and invited me to hear as properly. She defined in regards to the free bus, which we did not find yourself taking for the reason that stops weren’t coated and it was raining. She additionally lent us two umbrellas for our use within the park, which I used to be to be extraordinarily grateful for fairly quickly. They had been labeled as east gate (東口), which appears to be the primary entrance to the park. There’s additionally a west gate in accordance with the map, which I imagine would take you into city, however we solely used the east gate as a result of rain.

We first visited the indoor museum in a useless hope that the rain would gradual. We handed by a moat space with defensive stakes on our technique to the museum. The museum is usually in Japanese, with the titles of sections principally translated into English however not the primary textual content. I translated just a few issues for my sister which I discovered fascinating, however I did not learn every little thing since I am fairly lazy and my Japanese is not that nice. There have been photos and fashions of many issues which might make it easier to perceive even if you cannot learn a lot Japanese. There is likely one of the tomb jars within the museum if you do not have time to achieve the north village with the cemetery (which we ultimately determined to skip as a result of rain).