At The Station : Dogo Onsen

It's a street-car/tram station. Quaint station.

The station is known as the doorway to Dogo Onsen; the oldest hot spring spa in Japan - all 3,000 years worth of history there. What stories can the onsen tell us? No wonder it is said that the onsen is an inspiration for the animated movie "Spirited Away". Even without knowing it before, I thought of "Spirited Away" when I saw Dogo Onsen. ^^

The Dogo Onsen station embodies the charm of Meiji era (1868-1912). However, the current building is not the original Meiji era building but was rebuilt in 1986 and identical to the original one that was outdated. Iyo Railway had initially wanted to turn the old station into a terminal building complete with a hotel and a shopping centre but locals (and local businesses) opposed to the plan and urged for the preservation of the station building.

I don't know about you, but I think it would be quite incongruous to have such modern replacement for the station, what with Dogo Onsen just a few minutes away from the station!

Not that the surrounding area really is in harmony with the 110 years old three-storey timber structure, important cultural property that is Dogo Onsen. heh

The Botchan Reesha, a diesel powered replica of the original Iyotetsu matchbox-like streetcar that operated in Matsuyama between 1888 - 19654.

The tram operates once an hour all year round (trips varies for weekends and holidays).

We didn't get on the Botchan Reesha on our way back to Matsuyama Station. We got on this instead. 150yen per trip.

The interior of the tram we took. Very retro looking interior, don't you think?

That guy in white pants was going for a run at a nearby park. He got on at a station near a hotel and got off a few stops later, but not before I saw his stuff (ID, phone, cash) neatly packed in a clear plastic case. That folks, is a sign of a runner, going for a run. Zaini mentioned that he should have just run from his hotel to the park. I totally agree with Zaini. hehe

Okayama To Matsuyama

Another train post! Woohoo! 

This time, it's the limited express Shiokaze train (the JR Shikoku 2000 series) that we got on from Okayama to Matsuyama.

Cute, ne? Donburi-man trio(?)

We just jumped into the train without getting a seat reservation (the train was deaprting in a few minutes so we didn't want to waste time getting & reserving tickets or wait for the next train) and when we walked in the unreserved car of the train, almost every seat has a passenger. Not wanting to split up (for Raimie's benefit) and also seeing that the reserved cars were actually pretty empty; we just strolled into the reserved car and select our seats ourselves. When the ticket conductor came and checked our ticket, we knew that he wanted to mention to us that we were seating in reserved cars but he didn't (I suppose he thought that we wouldn't understand anyway). He allowed us to continue to be seated there because I think that most likely it will remain empty anyway. Plus, we aren't going to be charged extra sitting there are we are using our JR Pass. Love, love, love JR Pass. ^^

Plus, didn't hurt to look apologetic sitting where we weren't suppose to; to mollify the train conductor. That and look absolutely clueless. Can't fault or reason with clueless foreigners, right?

The scenery we enjoyed we left the main island of Honshu and into Shikoku.

The train we were on has Anpanman all over the exterior and interior. Pre-school Anpanman fans would love riding this train.

The train stopped at one of the stations as to connect with another train (can't remember which), before continuing its journey to Matsuyama and Uwajima. We got off to check out the process and we weren't the only ones!

Absolutely adorable train to ride on, don't you agree?

At The Station : Yufuin

Yufuin Station is a wooden terminal that also has a tourist information office and a small art gallery. A bit (just a little bit) of ENglish spoken there but you can ask for directions in English. There's a foot-bath somewhere but we didn't stop and try it. We were more excited about getting to our cottage and soak in a tub instead!

A deserted station in the evening. It was about 8.00pm when this photo were taken. We were out scrounging for food!

Yufuin Station doesn't have a ticket gate. As with a few other train stations in Japan, train staff would only stand on the platform when trains are arriving and departing to check for tickets. Train buffs can purchase platform tickets to check out the Yufuin no mori trains.

We had tickets reserved days earlier for our return trip to Hakata but as the day was so unconducive for sight-seeing - it being a rainy day and all, we decided to head to Hakata a few hours earlier. Zaini was checking out the time-table before getting our new tickets. No extra charge with JR Pass!

While waiting for the departure time of the Yufuin no mori, passengers had a ball of time taking photos on the platform, ourselves included.

I'll move on and post on a different city/island after this post. ^^

All About Toilets

We interrupt the current series of Yufuin posts and present you with another Japan convenience that we love; apart from vending machines, trains and stuff...

Some people take photos of food that they enjoy. Nowadays, taking photos before a meal is absolutely normal.

But there are also people who can be quite OCD about the toilet experiences they had while on vacation. I've posted about toilets in Japan before. Search them, if you are interested. But with such interesting arrays of hi-tech toilets in Japan, can you really blame me?

Toilets in trains are particularly interesting.

A really nice toilet on the Yufuin no mori train, a resort express with top speed of 120km/h plying the route from Hakata to Beppu.

A green walled toilet on the Huis Ten Bosch limited express train that runs from Hakata to Huis Ten Bosch theme park. Quite spacious for a toilet on a train, don't you think?

This - stainless steel, very sterile looking squat toilet on a particularly swaying trip on a JR Shikoku 2000 series, Anpanman painted Shiokaze train from Okayama to Matsuyama.

Found another squat toilet on train, a very bright lime green squat toilet on the Resort Shirakami train. Go on, search it. It's somewhere in this blog. ;p

Train station toilets:

Theme parks toilets:

At Huis Ten Bosch

Then of course the hotel toilets.

I think I got a few malls' toilets photos stashed away somewhere too. Lemme go and look. ^^

Rail Trip : Onboard The Yufuin no Mori

Ask us the reason we travelled all the way to Yufuin just to stay a night enjoying hot spring baths, and we'd tell you one of the reasons is to take a train!

This time, it's the Yufuin no mori limited express train.

Yufuin no mori means Forest of Yufuin. Quaint name. ^^

The trains run between Hakata to Yufuin, 2 round trips between Hakata & Yufuin and 1 round trip between Hakata & Oita. The journey from Hakata to Yufuin takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes. 2 hours' trip of amazing sights, I might add.

Lavish wood interior for this 4-car train. There's also a buffet car where you can buy food and souvenir items, a salon car and passenger cars.

A suave looking ticket inspector.

One thing about taking resort type trains and that's how the trip was made more fun by the staff onboard. The staff made annoucements when we are about to pass interesting sights such as a waterfall or the old train depot along the way, made rounds to sell souvenirs and food (can't push a food cart in this train, you see), encouraging passengers to take photos and being friendly and extra nice to all of us. Raimie even got a sticker from the train conductor. ^^

For those travelling in groups. This is nice, right? Train staff manning the buffet car will serve your order. You are welcome to be merry here!

The toilet! Very nice. Very clean.

Taking souvenir photos on the train with the staff was fun too! Kyushu Railways staff sure has spiffy looking uniforms.

That last photo was especially nice because it was taken on Raimie's birthday.

At The Station : Hakata Station

Japan = rail travel. Rail travel = train stations. For us, at least.

Spending a fair bit of time at the train stations is inevitable in Japan. Thus, there will be a series of "At The Station" posts coming up soon.

First : Hakata Station.

When we first ccame to Fukuoka in 2007 & 2008, the station was still undergoing a massive renovation.

In 2011, we arrived to a spacious, modern, clean and overall spanking new looking train station. The JR counters here are very foreign-tourists friendly, and by foreign tourist, I don't mean only for English speaking tourists. There are a LOT of Chinese and Korean speaking tourists in Kyushu, you know. Much more noticeable than at other parts of Japan, that I noticed.

It's always fun to be on the platform. Looking at fellow commuters either rushing to their destination after alighting the train or patiently waiting for the train to come.

Can't help myself taking a shot at this lady. Despite plenty of empty benches on the platform, she chose to squat there, eating her breakfast (of porridge/soup with a teeny weeny spoon). Of course, it was only me who took interest. Nobody else even look twice at her!

Then, there are the trains. It's always fun for us to watch trains arriving to the platform. You bet we had a ball of time running everywhere taking train photos! I mentioned this before. Once, I got so excited taking photos, I made the whole group missed our train!

Come nighttime, you'd see photographers taking their spot trying to capture the illumination set in front of Hakata Station. Christmas illumination in Japan is a BIG thing, it seems.

Like most big stations in Japan, one doesn't need to travel far to shop. Shopping malls are integrated within/around train stations! So convenient!

2011 Trip Recap, Part II

Still not too late to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR, right? あけましておめでとうございます again! :)

A continuation from my earlier post, recapping our trip to Japan made a few weeks ago in Dec 2011.

From Takamatsu in Shikoku, we made our way to Honshu Island on Day 8. Visited Nara for a few hours, stopped at Kyoto Station for a while, walked around Namba before finally calling it a day by boarding a sleeping train from Osaka to Tokyo. A pretty productive day, if I say so myself. ^^

Arrived Tokyo on Day 9 at 7.00am and proceeded on with more train journeys, all the way to Hakodate and view & touch some snow. Not to mention eating some awesome seafood there.

Stood in awe in front of the Kamakura Daibutsu on Day 10. It was raining the whole day we were there so had to re-adjust our plan but that's OK. There's always next time, right? ^^

Day 11 was spent with our most gracious host that day, Minor and his wife. It didn't rain that day, but it was COLD! Brrrr....

Day 12 was a sunny day, lucky for us. We took a stroll by the Sumida River, walking from our hotel in Senzoku and pretty soon found ourselves in Kinshicho.

 Went to Ogawamachi on Day 13 for a spot of shopping

On Day 14, we started our day at Kappabashi. Then, we made our way to Ueno and visited Yanaka Cemetery and stumbled into a few more interesting sites along the way. We eventually stopped to rest at Nippori before making our way back to Ueno.

The last day of our 2011 trip saw us visiting Yokohama again. No concrete plans of going sight-seeing anywhere so we just meander around the area before finally making our way to Haneda Airport and boarded our AirAsia X flight.

A totally awesome trip. We got to see the sights we wanted and more. A few we didn't make it but we are not totally bummed over it. As I see it, that's an excuse to make a return visit, if we need any. xD