I'm currently waiting for about 14 files of a design project left to upload to an FTP and if I leave my computer for any extended period of time, the connection gets disrupted
soooo I thought I'd take the time to write about my belated trip to
Kyushu in February.
Since November I'd been planning to meet my friend Becka down in Nagasaki where she JET's in a small coastal down. Since I had to transfer to a different line in Fukuoka, my friend Liz and I planned a small meet-up as well.
By the way, when traveling from anywhere to Fukuoka (i.e. the Shinkansen) ask for
Hakata-
eki,
not Fukuoka-eki. That will take you somewhere out in
Toyama-ken. Not the same. Definitely almost made
that mistake.
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| Bourdain; the love of my life |
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| lynch. lynch. lynch. Aka My 葉月 love continues |
After I arrived in
Hakata after a 6 hour shinkanesen ride, I met up with Liz so we could go to lunch. We ended up at a place called
Ocean's Ono. The main requirement to work here? You must be male, and you gotta be
イケメン (ikemen = good-looking) as hell.
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| This whole spread was about 850yen! |
The boys were just as good-looking as the food. Like an all senses buffet. It's about an 8-minute walked from
Tenjin Station so if you live in or around Fukuoka or you're planning on making a visit I highly recommend it!
After that we made our way to one of the malls (can't remember which!) for some purikura. Obligatory
cloudy!Fukuoka pictures.
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| Favorite puri with Liz!! |
After that it was time to get on the
Midori No. 9 line that would take me from Hakata to
Haiki where I would transfer yet again to the
Seaside Liner which would take me to the small town of Kawatana where Becka teaches. Headed to small family restaurant by her house for a very late but nostalgic dinner.
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| Hamburg steak...om nom |
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| Coffee + dessert! |
After we walked back to Becka's, we proceeded to stay up until 5:00am and sleep until 2:00pm. Catching up with a BFFL takes a lot out of you and the two of us are talkers. I think we only made it out of the house the next day to go to Gusto for dinner.
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| Miiine |
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| Becka's |
We'd planned on going back into the same pattern from the night before but instead thought we'd pop into the snack bar Himawari that she lives above. 3-4 hours and several drinks later, we'd managed to sing some Gackt, Green Day and amass several old man fans.
Maybe I should start a cover band after all?
The next day we were successfully and
magically up before 2:00pm! Which meant we could actually do something.
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| I think we managed noon? |
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| Oh oh! But it started snowing! |
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|
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| Not that it stayed... |
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| The river on the way to her school |
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| Sooo pretty! |
Ironically we still didn't plan anything huge because Becka and I are the kind of friends that--since we met almost 4 years ago--need practically nothing to have a good time together. We talk. A lot. So we planned to head to Sasebo to have lunch and shop around a bit.
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| The bay Kawatana sits on |
Kawatana is
literally right on the coast and it looked absolutely gorgeous in the daytime with the hills coming right up to the water. The water is also aquamarine up close! I'm weird and really like
water and
mountains when it comes to landscapes. Don't ask.
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| Sasebo! The US military base is here so lots of foreigners |
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| Sasebo Burger! Life size ed. |
Sasebo is famous for their
Sasebo Burger--as can be seen by this person-size replica in the station. Soooo...naturally as Becka and I are both
not-so-closet food-junkies, we had to.
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| Becka! It's cute, don't kill me! |
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| Derp face :B |
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| The very delicious Sasebo Burger makes its debut |
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| Delicious coffee in a cute cup & saucer |
The coffee + burger set was about 1000yen but
so worth it! I can't even tell you
why the
Sasebo Burger is special or unique but it
was and it was
delicious. The coffee was also perfect; almost as good as Puerto Rico's coffee which is my long-standing favorite.
We walked around for a while and both ending up dropping about 5000-7000 yen in a cosmetics store and
Tutuanna. I needed new lashes and a lipstick and legwarmers. And by
need I assume that can be loosely interpreted. No pictures because I forgot.
But we did ended up at Starbucks with one of the cutest barista boys
ever. He was probably younger than both of us but we ignored it and happily enjoyed his flirty charm. Cheeky kid.
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| Caramel Machiatoooo |
We headed to the bar again that night and sang more Gackt, more Green Day a bit of Motley Crue and a song or two from the Gazette. Found we were surprisingly decent at singing
紅蓮 until we reached the end.
The next day we'd planned on going to a dog cafe in her town but woke up too late so ended up at Gusto again. There were two
Rooster boys* at the station in Kawatana. One of them had a purse. Sadly I did not get a picture.
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| Valentine's Day hamburg-steak |
It was a
looooooooong trip down to Nagasaki; in hindsight if I had looked earlier I should have tried to find a cheap flight to Nagasaki Airport or something. A 6-hour trip to Hakata by Shinkansen and then about another 2-hours to Kawatana is
not easy. But! I'll do anything to see a good friend; especially one that I hadn't seen in a
loooong time.
I love living in Tokyo but to but honest, when it comes to
visiting places, I really
like going to places that not everyone goes to. The hidden places, the smaller towns. You get to see a side of Japan and of Japanese people that you don't always see in bigger cities like Tokyo or Osaka. I'm so proud of her for doing so well down there and it was so good to see a best friend; even if we really didn't do all
that much.
Due to the quake + tsunami + reactors, I don't know when my next trip will be but I have traveled a
lot and I thought about posting about some of those trips? Osaka, Nagoya, Tokushima, Niigata, Sendai etc.
Does anyone have any places they'd like to see? Or questions about traveling in Japan?
* A Rooster is either a host boy or a boy who looks like a host boy. (i.e. モリモリ (big) hair, pointy shoes, etc). My roomie and I coined this last year and it's stuck ever since. 
