Welcome to the fourth and final part of my November travels. Recapping this month has been the most fun yet for me and in today’s report, I will be talking about my visits in Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Kagoshima! Mountain views, horse meat and a small volcano eruption will make an appearance in here – in text and picture form!
As per usual, the other reports are down here:
[Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/178mxdx/one_year_in_japan_the_open_air_sauna_june_july/) | [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/17kfjpl/one_year_in_japan_escaping_the_heat_august_2022/) | [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/17yfls8/one_year_in_japan_sapporo_my_beloved_august_22/) | [Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1b1mkrh/one_year_in_japan_big_news_first_mistakes/) | [Part 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1b88w18/one_year_in_japan_a_most_enjoyable_kyoto_october/) | [Part 6](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1bi2lvb/one_year_in_japan_kanazawa_and_nakasendo_november/) | [Part 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1bsgtgx/one_year_in_japan_onomichi_and_the_famous/) | [Part 8](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/1c0nfqf/one_year_in_japan_a_boat_ride_and_first/)
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**Nagasaki**
Getting from Fukuoka to Nagasaki by train was kind of annoying if I recall correctly. Had to take the Relay-Kamome train first and then switch over to the Shinkansen and I remember being slightly confused by the platform numbers for the different trains coming in but perhaps I was just a bit dumb that day since I never had problems with this before. Nevertheless, I arrived in Nagasaki without any delays, dropped my stuff off at the hotel and immediately started exploring the city! Two full days in Nagasaki were more than enough for me on this trip.
The first place I checked out was [Dejima](https://i.imgur.com/Xeq9WFA.jpeg), the district where the former Dutch trading station was located. It was also the only place Westerners were allowed to be in in the country at that time! But as with a lot of places I wanted to see during my year in Japan, some buildings were being renovated and/or covered up so I didn’t get to take pictures that were worth it, which was a bit sad. There are a few exhibitions in the individual buildings within the district, showing off some of the Western influence on this particular part of Nagasaki.
From there, I took a quick walk around the [port](https://imgur.com/a/xQNrpw0) because I am a sucker for ports and the nice scenery they provide. Inasayama can be seen from down there as well. One thing to note is that Nagasaki is incredibly walkable as far as cities go because a lot of the sights are concentrated in a few spots, which made walking from the port to the Glover Garden super easy. The slopes around this side feature a lot of Western buildings yet again. The “Dutch Slope” leads uphill and there are a lot of shops and bakeries around; Castella in particular being advertised a lot because Nagasaki is somewhat famous for it (for good reason!). Glover Garden makes for a nice little walk around, offers great [views](https://imgur.com/a/eo0BmFC) of Nagasaki and obviously also has Western[ influenced architecture](https://i.imgur.com/qSQe2jN.jpeg) to boot. A short walk away are [Sofukuji](https://imgur.com/a/GPhNpKL) and [Kofukuji](https://imgur.com/a/qFohCrz), two Chinese-inspired/founded temples. At the time of being there, they were very quiet and I saw at most a handful of people. Maybe that was because of borders only having recently opened back then or because people just don’t go there? Either way, worth a short visit in my book. Obligatory “random photogenic cat” picture [here](https://i.imgur.com/FS1Ma5i.jpeg).
[Meganebashi](https://imgur.com/a/tmRasjj) is pretty much right next to those two temples and fairly unimpressive. But if you want to have that picture for Instagram and you’re in the vicinity anyway, why not check it out? Especially because one of my favourite [yakitori places](https://maps.app.goo.gl/MVaowQ9HVogZg48EA) in Japan is next to it. The owners are very talkative, the prices were good and the [food](https://i.imgur.com/DEy1j2l.jpeg) was great. Of course, yakitori alone didn’t satiate my hunger so afterwards I hit up Ramen [Hiiragi](https://maps.app.goo.gl/KpS7e4Kv4PQsjAb7A) because it looked intersting on Google maps, particularly the [tomato ramen](https://i.imgur.com/FnNZ97r.jpeg) which I ended up going with. Now, I absolutely loathe eggplant but I couldn’t exactly _not_ eat those but they were fried and the tomato broth covered the usual eggplant taste well so it just felt like crunchy _something_. The ramen itself was amazing, however! I rarely finished ramen bowls completely because it’s incredibly unhealthy but I couldn’t stop myself from drinking all of this broth. Definitely recommend this spot and if you go there, make sure to ask the staff for a paper apron because you will need it. That was the first day in Nagasaki done – I bought some chocolate castella at one of the shops around the slopes earlier in the day and devoured that in my hotel before going to sleep.
The second day started out with a trip to the Chinatown…however, I do not have any pictures of it whatsoever. I remember it not being as large as I expected it to be and felt quite a bit disappointed even, which may be the reason I didn’t take my phone out to take pictures. I’ve only got one nikuman from one of the corner stores there, it was _alright_ and a bit pricy – so perhaps more of a tourist spot? Maybe someone more knowledgeable about Nagasaki can tell me whether my assessment of it was right and correct me.
I was hungry rather early in the day for once and once again opted for ramen because I found another somewhat [unique](https://maps.app.goo.gl/baqmRFY1Csg2FzmG6) place on Google maps serving lemon ramen. I chose the [tsukemen version](https://i.imgur.com/RFqLMOa.jpeg) and it was decent, nothing super special. Maybe the ramen would have been the better choice. From there, I moved over to the [Confucius Shrine](https://imgur.com/a/6nvwMOG) – which was one of the most colourful ones I have seen up to that point! There’s an exhibition inside showcasing a lot of Chinese pottery and the like and very much worth checking out in my opinion.
Of course I couldn’t go to Nagasaki without visiting the [peace park](https://imgur.com/a/NDg37Ys) and the museum. Compared to the ones in Hiroshima, these were both smaller in scale and I must say I “enjoyed” Hiroshima’s museum more, whereas I thought the statues in Nagasaki had more of an effect on me. That being said, highly recommended to check both out if you are ever visiting the cities. As I had seen most of the things I wanted to see by this point, I decided to head over to [Inasayama](https://imgur.com/a/PLVK4O5), which is accessible by [ropeway](https://maps.app.goo.gl/MBtekTrDBorjqXyo8) from [Fuchi Shrine](https://i.imgur.com/nWKjM17.jpeg) station, which was a bit confusing to find at first. Since it was only about 4:30pm, sunset was a bit off so I stayed up on the observatory for a good while.
I sat down, [admiring the view of the sea and the islands in the distance \(one of which is the famous Gunkanjima](https://imgur.com/a/Y6gyS7a), which can be seen ever so slightly from up there but probably not on photos I took) and sort of started to once again get a bit sentimental. I was sitting on top of this mountain, almost half a year had past since I arrived in Japan, I’ve had lived there and travelled to Sapporo and all the way down to Nagasaki and it just sort of hit me again that this was, infact, real. It might sound dramatic (and I will have many more melodramatic moments!) but to me, it was a fairly emotional moment because if someone had told me I’d do that sort of thing 5 years before that, I’d have called them crazy.
Either way, the sun started to set ever so slightly, poking through the clouds until it eventually disappeared, giving way to the amazing [night time view](https://imgur.com/a/ySqt4qm) of Nagasaki. Alongside Hakodate and Kobe, Nagasaki has one of the top 3 night time views in Japan. I’m still missing the Kobe one but I can barely decide between Hakodate and Nagasakis. Right now, I’d lean more in favour of Nagasaki. I wish I had a better camera at the time to capture the view from up there because my phone took garbage ones at night time so this is the best I can provide. Also, the observatory gets really packed around night time so if you want to get a good spot to take pictures from, be sure to get there a bit early and just secure yourself a spot because before you know it, someone with a tripod and the most expensive camera you’ve ever seen will take it and not move for 2 hours.
I made the mistake of only wearing a sweater that day, which was good enough on the “ground” but certainly not good enough to be on the peak of that mountain after sundown, so once I had taken enough pictures, I made my way back down and walked a long while along the [riverside](https://i.imgur.com/LhZsxd8.jpeg) until I arrived back in Hamamachi for my final meal in Nagasaki, which ended up being [sara udon](https://i.imgur.com/VMzWRkL.jpeg) at [Manpuku](https://maps.app.goo.gl/a9ou2SwS7JPbcis28). Sara udon is basically a dish consisting of a base of crispy noodles which have another layer of “normal” noodles topped with a variety of vegetables, seafood and/or pork. This turned out to be one of my favourite meals in Japan! I absolutely loved the contrasting textures found in here and wish I had more time to get another one of those in but maybe in the future… And with that final meal in me, I walked back to my hotel and prepared for the next stop:
**Kumamoto**
Getting to Nagasaki from Kumamoto was just as much, if not more, of a hassle than getting from Fukuoka to Nagasaki and this is where I realised that I didn’t have a lot of time in Kumamoto because I left Nagasaki at around 11am, arriving in Kumamoto at 2pm. I quickly dropped my luggage off at my hotel and went back outside towards [Kumamoto castle](https://imgur.com/a/86IdBkI), which would be the only thing I could check out in Kumamoto at all unfortunately. That being said, the castle itself is fantastic. The black exterior is something you don’t often see in Japan (another example is Okayama castle) and the fact that it was still undergoing repairs from the time an earthquake struck a few years prior made some parts look like it had been in battle recently. The inside – like most other castles in Japan – has your typical museum, a surprising lack of English explanations but [good views](https://imgur.com/a/1MuzojG) from the many lookout spots inside. Once I had seen everything, I went back into the city proper to find a place serving a dish Kumamoto is somewhat famous for…
Basashi – horse meat. Now, I don’t really have any problems with the fact that this is horse meat. I know plenty of people do, but I simply wanted to try it out for myself because from videos, people describe it just like beef in taste. There have been many recommendations for a place serving[basashi nigiri](https://imgur.com/a/1P7nZT6), which I ended up going for – and kinda regretted. Not because the taste was bad or anything but because it just tasted like…nothing. It certainly didn’t taste like beef and if it had not been for the soy sauce it was served with, it would have just tasted like nothing to me. Perhaps I have to try out a different type of it at some point but as of now, I can’t really recommend going for a rather expensive dish like that unless you just want to experience it for yourself once.
Unfortunately, this was all I did in Kumamoto due to bad planning on my part. I might return some day to visit the surrounding areas of Kumamoto, such as the Aso volcano.
**Kagoshima**
At long last, after travelling all across Japan, visiting 10 cities along the way in two weeks, hiking along the Nakasendo and cycling the Shimanami Kaido, I had arrived in Kagoshima – reaching a personal goal I had for a few years. Thankfully getting from Kumamoto to Kagoshima is far easier than the last two train journeys I have had to be on as the Shinkansen line connects the two cities directly. Kagoshima is also the “end of the line” as far as Shinkansen go on the southern side of Japan! I got one of the two day passes that allows for travel on buses and the ferries to Sakurajima but it was not worth it for me personally because not ALL buses are included in it. As I arrived, the weather turned for the worse and it started raining and storming, making the journey to my Airbnb fairly annoying. It was also a bit off the center of Kagoshima but if you’ve followed some of my other reports, you already know I actually quite enjoy staying in places like that.
I was soaked from the rain and had to take a shower and throw some clothes into the washer and wait until the storm passed, which didn’t happen until several hours later. Eventually it did pass though and I was hungry as all hell. A quick look at Google maps revealed a few options in the neighbourhood so I decided on a small restaurant that served your typical okonomiyaki, yakisoba and the like. This must have been one of the most “local” of the local places I had been to at that point, especially because Kagoshima wasn’t exactly a tourist hotspot and on top of that this place was in a neighbourhood far away from the city center. Not only that but when I entered the place, it really did look like the owner simply turned her kitchen into a restaurant. I sat down at one of the empty tables, which is basically just a big stove like those in okonomiyaki places where the food is cooked/fried in front of you (I have no idea what this is called right now). The lady owner was a bit hard of hearing, like the reviews suggested but nevertheless I got my order of yakisoba and okonomiyaki in.
She prepared the food at the “big” stove in the kitchen before bringing the food over and putting it onto my “stove table thing” where it was kept warm and fried. It’s not the most [amazing looking food](https://i.imgur.com/8fkmSeB.jpeg) and it’s also not the most special but it hit the spot just right. I finished my food, thanked the lady and then took a little walk to a nearby park in hopes of seeing Sakurajima at night but no luck, therefore I went back to my airbnb and went to sleep, ready to explore the city properly on the next day.
And what an eventful day it would turn out to be. I started the day with a meal Kagoshima is apparently known for: kurobuta tonkatsu. Now, I love tonkatsu and have had some incredible tonkatsu in Japan, I’ve also had some pretty meh ones in Japan. My expectations were really high because [the place](https://maps.app.goo.gl/EvGaSBNDUS43yJpN7) I went to had a 4.4 rating on Google Maps and I once had kurobuta tonkatsu in Tokyo and it was incredible so surely this would meet my expectations and even blow them out of the water, right?
Wrong. This was such a bad experience from start to finish, I’ll actually describe it in detail. So first of all, I put my name down on the sheet outside the restaurant because there was a waiting time. No problem, I wasn’t in a rush so I waited until I was called up. After about 20 minutes, I was called in and seated at the table, I gave them my order and then waited… and waited… and waited… 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes – no food in sight. One waiter walked over to the young couple that came in _after_ me and profusely apologised to them for the long wait. Me though? No information about the whereabouts of my food. I was actually getting a bit irritated but held out and then, after a solid 40 minutes of waiting and multiple other people who came in after me getting their food, my dish arrived. Well, it [looked fantastic](https://i.imgur.com/AGimQ4N.jpeg) and my irritation went away and I thought “Okay, whatever, shit happens, just enjoy the food now”. But the food was not good whatsoever! Indulge me for a bit here but if you’ve ever had good tonkatsu with fatty parts, you will know that a well made tonkatsu’s fatty bits will just dissolve in your mouth.
This one? Just chewy as all hell which made eating it extremely tough. Furthermore, the meat itself just didn’t seem all that great to begin with. I couldn’t help but think they must have had an off day or something because all the reviews talkeda about how tender and incredible the black pork was but my experience was a disaster. Of course I finished everythind anyway and paid the almost 3000 yen bill before leaving very disappointed and actually kind of pissed off due to how long it took for the food to come out and how bad it turned out to be. According to my maps timeline, I spent almost 1 1/2 hours in this restaurant. Definitely my worst food experience in Japan to date.
Either way, the day was just beginning so I strolled over to Shiroyama park and begin the climb up a bunch of stairs to the observatory, hoping to get some nice pictures of Sakurajima! But luck just wasn’t on my side until that point and the volcano was obscured by [clouds](https://imgur.com/a/uDi0b4K). I asked one of the staff members if they could take a picture of me with the volcano in the background and he happily obliged, taking a few pictures and giving me the obligatory “Nihongo jouzu” when I answered some of his questions. This turned out to be a very good thing because as I was looking at the park map, a Japanese guy started to talk to me in Japanese. I was a bit perplexed because it was pretty rare for Japanese people to randomly strike up a conversation unless I was in a bar or something. After a few seconds, I asked him to repeat his question and he proceeded to ask me, in fluent English, where I was from and what I was doing in Kagoshima. We began talking and walking together for a bit and it turned out he was on a two week vacation and on somewhat of a cycling tour around Kyushu.
We both wanted to see Sengan-en so we decided to just walk there together, talking about our lives and all – it was really cool. On the way there, we caught glimpses of Sakurajima already and by the time we arrived at the garden, the clouds had mostly disappeared and the volcano stood there in all its [glory](https://imgur.com/a/wM5uKri). A striking sight, especially from inside the garden. We spent an hour or so looking at every nook and cranny of the [garden](https://imgur.com/a/7zuJ1Re) and the old clan houses before deciding to go for dinner together as well. And man, was it nice to have a Japanese native speaker with me because it makes booking restaurants infinitely easier haha. He called up a shabu shabu place and they were full but said they could give us a slot if we finished within an hour. Easy! We ordered a bunch of [meat and drinks](https://i.imgur.com/Mpi7jZy.jpeg), chatted some more about future plans and what not and by the end, he offered to pay for the whole meal too! Half a year before, I would have probably fought him and said “NO, you can’t do that!” but at this point, I just went “Alright, I’ve been here long enough now to know if a Japanese person says they will pay, I will just thank you for it!”. We laughed, got out the restaurant and parted ways. I kept in touch with him for a while but alas, just like with many other Japanese people I had met during my time in Japan, at some point there was just no communication from them anymore.
But this was a great experience and one I won’t forget and that is what travelling is all about. On my way back to my Airbnb I passed by a small yakitori place and decided to just get a set of 10 skewers for 1000 yen, asked the owner for his recommendation and talked with him a bit in Japanese and he made me keep 200 yen. Honestly, Kagoshima had the friendliest people I had met in Japan and I absolutely loved that. With my yakitori in tow, I went back to my humble abode, ate and went to sleep.
And thus began the final day of my long travels in November and it was time to board a ferry over to [Sakurajima](https://i.imgur.com/ui3HTQV.jpeg) itself. The volcano occasionally has small eruptions but mostly nothing to worry about and on that day, it looked like there would not be any eruptions so the ferry ride was no problem. The volcano looks absolutely magnificent if it’s not obstructed by clouds and the ferry ride took only about 20 minutes. You can get on two different buses at the ferry terminal on Sakurajima island, both taking you along a different route. I can’t remember which I took but most people got off for a bit at the [Yunohira Observation deck](https://imgur.com/a/KG8cfEE), which offered great views of the volcano from up close and Kagoshima in the distance. After a short while, everyone got back onto the bus and back to the ferry port where I decided to take the ferry back already. I was debating on whether or not to explore the island more but felt like I was content that day…and that turned out to be a good decision because on the [ride back](https://imgur.com/a/mbMKX1R), the volcano started to smoke and just a few minutes after returning to Kagoshima proper, it had a small [eruption](https://imgur.com/a/sMoe4js)!
I got pretty lucky to get pictures of that happening that day! I stood around the port for a bit, watching as the plume disappeared sooner or later, got ramen for early dinner before heading back home, preparing for the next day’s long, long Shinkansen adventure… but not before going back out to sin by getting some McDonald’s. It had been a while and I was craving some cheap burgers, don’t judge me please.
**Return to Tokyo**
All journeys come to an end and this November one’s had come. What lied ahead of me was a 7 1/2 hour Shinkansen journey from Kagoshima all the way to Tokyo. It started out with a Japanese lady thinking I was sitting in her seat, insisting that I was in the wrong one even though I showed her my ticket multiple times. Only when a younger Japanese man came over did she start to believe! A bit of a stressful situation to kick things off but with that out the way, I spent the next 7 hours staring out of windows most of the time, except for one train change in Hiroshima IIRC. There was a surprise [Fuji poking through the clouds](https://i.imgur.com/949VgDf.jpeg) at one point, which was neat. When I arrived in Tokyo, I quickly made my way to my accommodation and spent the following 2-3 days just… recharging.
During the whole ~3 weeks of travelling, the hype and perhaps adrenaline kept my body running but just like with any other vacation I previously took in Japan, once the travelling is done with, the body needs time to rest and so I barely did anything for a few days, only leaving the house for food and laundry until I finally felt like going back out for a whole day. And since it was late November, fall colours in Tokyo were still alive and well. I took a train to Kichijoji and spent a bunch of time in [Inokashira park](https://imgur.com/a/rhXNlXS) and then at one of my favourite [ramen](https://i.imgur.com/GTX73RA.jpeg) places in Japan, which I might have mentioned in a different report but because I can’t remember if I did, here’s the [maps](https://maps.app.goo.gl/toSbp1aUsvbN71zH6) location for it. A friend I previously made in Sapporo also came to visit Tokyo together with another friend of hers, so we spent two days weebing out since she rarely got to travel away from the small town she was placed in as a JET and she wanted to get all her favourite idol shopping done.
I showed them around Sumidagawa and Asakusa at night, where I got a great [fortune slip](https://i.imgur.com/54HJVKM.jpeg), before we finished with a nice dinner at a Korean restaurant, stuffing our faces with all [sorts of delicious food](https://imgur.com/a/fpHXTqt) while watching Germany get beat by Costa Rica in the world cup. Fun times! They then returned to Hokkaido, but it wouldn’t be the last time I had met my friend in Japan.
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Aaaaand with that, November came to a close. This was the most eventful month of my entire year in Japan, only February 2023 and March/April 2023 came close. I visited 10 or 11 cities and checked a lot of things I had wanted to do for years off my list and was super happy to have done so but the post-travel depression also kind of hit, which is crazy, isn’t it? I was still in Japan for another _half a year_ but somehow I felt that THIS was the highlight of my trip and it couldn’t be topped so the next few days, perhaps even a week were filled with a bit of a somber mood in my mind haha.
Favourite thing I’ve done was easily the Shimanami Kaido. My favourite city was easily Nagasaki. I hope I can return to the latter one day because it just has such an incredibly peaceful vibe, the food is amazing, the architecture fairly unique to Japan and the view from Inasayama is unmatched in my opinion. If you’ve ever thought about visiting Nagasaki or Kagoshima and whether it’s worth going all the way down there, I’d wholeheartedly say: do it, you will not regret it. Not only because Kyushu just feels very different to the rest of Japan but because tourists rarely ever go there so you can enjoy a lot of sights without masses of people!
Up next will be December, where I will write about my experiences of Christmas and New Year’s in Japan – the first time I had spent Christmas away from home – which I have mixed feelings about. I hope you look forward to it. If there are any questions about anything, feel free to ask. See you in the next one and thanks for reading, if you made it all the way down here.
by Dumbidiot1323