Travel Japan - Japan Package Tours, Cheap Flights to Japan, Japan Hotels and Japan Rail Pass

I have to say that for me the best spot in Kyushu is Nagasaki. Nagasaki has such a beautiful location being by the water so by night you can see the twinkle of the lights on the sea. It is hard to imagine the severity of the Atomic Bomb on this city as it is green, locals are friendly, and there is a lot of European culture. If you can only get to one of the Peace parks I do think Nagasaki’s the better one as it is smaller, well laid out and humbling.  City is also famous for Castella cake, similar to our Maderia cake, fantastic for an afternoon tea break.

All photos courtesy of JNTO

 All in all I strongly recommend making your way down to Kyushu if you have time as it is a vastly culturally diverse island with many sites and food to tryJ 

If you would like more information about any of these areas, the Juuhachi Kippu or tours offered in Kyushu, do not hesitate to contact your friendly Travel Japan consultants.

 2 great tours we offer are:

`Nagasaki & Imari Pottery’ 5 days visiting Fukuoka, Imari and Nagasaki from $2388.00 per person
`Mt Aso and Kagoshima’ 5 days visiting Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Kagoshima from $2735.00 per person

From here we head some to Takachiho, located in Miyazaki prefecture.

Takachiho has a beautiful gorge where you can do some short walks and row a cute boat along the bottom of the gorge. It is not a big area but very quaint.

Next stop was Mt Aso

Now this is a remote area with very few buses running to the lookout and no English signs. For the first time ever, we hitchhiked up as we had to wait 2 hours for the next bus!! Luckily for us a grandma and grandpa couple picked us up in their flash sedan and even though we could barely communicate we were treated so kindly with continuous supplies of chocolates and hot chips being passed over the back seat! Only in Japan……If the weather is not good, then you can not take the ropeway to the top and not much can been seen – this happened to us. But friends who have also visited Mt Aso were in luck and raved about the walks and views from the top.

After a night in Fukuoka we made our way to Beppu. Beppu is a famous onsen (hot spring) town where we heard that the mud onsen is something not to be missed. Travelling around Kyushu is not as easy as Honshu due the less frequent trains and lack of English but it is still a great destination.

The mud hot spring we got into was actually MIXED (both males and females in one area) and outdoor. For 3 girls this was all very daunting and new. The etiquette is to take of the modesty towel before entering but I have to say that we broke this in the mixed onsen as we got in with our towels on and then unveiled Great experience and the thick/warm mud felt amazing. Definitely recommend getting past the embarrassment to try this out.

The other thing to do while in Beppu is visit the `8 Hells’ which are 8 different types of hot springs, no swimming allowed and are all different colours and style. One even has crocodiles! They all have their own mascots as well which is fun for a photo op. Generally they are only to look at but some have a small foot hot spring that you can enjoy while eating eggs boiled in the hot waters.

Trying to see the most of the country that I could with this ticket as I could, my friends and I decided to go south, to Kyushu. From Nagoya to Hakata was something like a 14 -16 hours train trip, starting at about 5.30am. You really have to plan ahead which trains you need to take because to give you an idea we had to change about 8 times on this leg!!

A great website to do this is `Hyperdia’http://www.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi

First stop was Fukuoka which is a lovely city famous for fresh crab, blowfish and Ramen. Of course I ate my way around as well, must try everything on the way!! Blowfish looks just like this (below) if you have as sashimi. I didn’t think that it had too much flavor but I don’t think that my palate for Japanese food wasn’t very refined at this stage

When we ordered it though, a man came out with a net and grabbed one out of the pond in front of us and we could see the chef in the kitchen slicing it up for us – talk about fresh! Before we knew it, it was in front of us, body also on plate as a decoration….

If you are the type of traveler that likes to see all but doesn’t have the deep pocket to take the 1^st class options, then I recommend travelling throughout Japan with the `Seihun Juuhachi Kippu’ which means Youth18 tickets. This is not available all year round but if you happen to be in Japan in the times below then you can take full advantage of this. Despite the name, travelers of any age group can purchase this ticket

It is sold as a 5 Day Pass, which means that you can use this for any 5 days, from the beginning of the day till the end but one thing to be careful with is that you can only use it on local, semi-rapid and rapid trains so you do need to have a lot of TIME

*These tickets can be purchased only in Japan*