Wife (35F) and I (35M) arrived yesterday to Tokyo for our second trip to Japan and we’re outbound from Yokosuka to Shinmoji to lay low in Kyushu (Kumamoto specifically) during Golden Week before we make our way back up towards Tokyo with plenty of stops on the way!
Currently have the back deck of the ship to myself as I write this. Have been a bit under the weather with laryngitis the last couple of weeks and a couple of long plane flights and unusual sleeping conditions have made sleep not particularly pleasant so I’m hanging out awake while most people are asleep! Got some onigiri and some drinks to keep me company until the sun rises! Anyways…
We decided to catch the Kyushu ferry from Toyko to have bit of a different experience rather than just using the trains! Saw someone on YouTube doing it and thought it looked like a good idea! Booked our cabins/fares a couple of months ago through the offical website, was a bit of pain as the translations to English weren’t super clear and there were some hassles about area codes for phone numbers that we fixed by not putting any number at all!! Booking went through ok after that! We went with a couple of capsule style pods rather than a room for cost reasons more than anything! Ferry departs at 11:45pm in the evening from Yokosuka and gets to its destination in Shinmoji (near Fukuoka) around 9pm the next day, so almost 24hrs.
Fast forward to this evening! Made it the ferry port in Yokosuka this evening from Shibuya where we had spent the day hanging out. Used Suica passes and Google Maps to work out what trains to take and had no issues. Picked up some snacks from 7/11 on the way to the ferry terminal and checked in with no issues, the staff had enough English for us to understand the process and we waited for boarding upstairs with a few hundred others!
Noticed very few foreigners apart from ourselves waiting and I don’t know how often tourists use these ferries but we wanted to try it out! Boarding was smooth and we found our capsules easily. A decent amount of space and storage but a tad stuffy! Had an explore around the ship and then my wife and I decided to brave an entirely new experience… Japanese public bathing!!!
On our last trip we had a private onsen in Hakone and that was the extent of our bathing experience in Japan.
This ferry has no private bathing facilities or showers, just a men’s and women’s bathing facilities including traditional bathing stalls, hot pools, sauna and even an open air hot pool! For those unfamiliar, this type of bathing involves getting completely naked around a bunch of strangers in a locker room and proceed the wash and bath area to wash and clean yourself and soak in the tub with said strangers!!
As a couple of Aussies this was definitely a new and challenging experience! My wife did not like it at all and got out of there pretty quickly after a quick wash and dip in the bath!
I chickened out after walking into the bathroom and confronting the full reality of what a “public” bath meant!! I’m a nurse so seeing other people naked doesn’t bother me at all, but me being the one naked, uhuh, not sure about that!!
And then I did something I didn’t think I would be capable of..
I went back in and decided to embrace the experience and ended up really enjoying it!!! I had the open air bath to myself and felt really refreshed afterwards, especially with how crap I’d been feeling due to illness!!
Now I’m on the back of ship with place to myself in blissful quietness after a day of hanging around Shibuya and waiting for the sun to properly rise on the start of a hooray that we’ve really been looking forward to!!!
Anyways, hope you like this rambling live trip report and happy to answer questions about the ferry!!
9 comments
That sounds rad. I’m starting Kyushu portion in Kagoshima so I had to fly from Tokyo. But an overnight ferry sounds awesome.
Good for you! I believe that feeling comfortable in public baths is an important step in enjoying Japanese travel. Having said that, there’s no way my teenage sons would ever set foot in a Japanese public bath!
Wow, the open-air bath with a view of the ocean sounds amazing! Thank you for sharing your report. How comfortable are the beds? Can you sleep well on the ferry?
Nice write up thank you. We were in Kyushu just a few weeks ago. We had a great time.
The ferry trip is interesting. When I saw your title I was expecting it to be from Busan to Fukuoka, which we considered when doing our itinerary.
I’m a bit shy of public nudity too. We stayed in a ryokan in Yufuin which had a few private onsens. I’m yet to go public but wife goes for it.
Ours were all under the sun or stars. Wonderful experience. Yufuin is a lovely town in a beautiful setting. Particularly when the cherry blossums were in full bloom.
What’s your itinerary look like in Kyushu and what did the ferry cost per person please?
The public baths are fine. The important thing is to wash yourself before you go in the bath. And then just hang out in the bath. No one’s looking down at your peen.
Then wash again afterwards. Everybody’s extremely clean and hygienic. It’s way better than are stupid way.
This is really interesting – please update us on the rest of your trip.
We’re planning a trip in December, traveling around Kyushu for a week, another week traveling up towards Tokyo, and then two weeks in Tokyo with the in-laws.
Our plan is to fly from Tokyo to Kagoshima and then spend 2-3 days in Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Fukuoka and then head north, stopping at Hiroshima, Himeji and Kobe.
So I am very interested in hearing about your experience in Kyushu! Perhaps we should take the ferry, rather than flying (bearing in mind the ferry takes much longer, of course!).
I would love to go in the ferries, I watch the YouTube channel that goes on this religiously. Cannot believe I never new this was a thing until after my 5th or 6th trip to Japan.
My only issue is my wife gets terrible seasick / motion sick and really struggles (boats, busses etc). Luckily doesn’t have the same issue in trains!
Thanks for sharing, it’s super cool to hear about under the radar opportunities like this! About to leave for my 4th trip to Japan and never heard of that.
I live here in Japan and can’t wait to take ferries around the place!