A Break From Japanese Food

It was a visit to Huis Ten Bosch. A trip just for One Piece, as a birthday present for Raimie last year. We took a break from eating Japanese food and had fast food instead. Birthday boy was happy.

No meat. No chicken for us. Just fish. Fish burger was the meal of the day for us!

A lot of fellow Malaysians would keel over eating burgers in Japan because they won't get chilli sauce with the burgers. What???!!!! No free chilli sauce?! Horror! Who eats burgers without chilli sauce???!!! LOL

Raimie does. We do too!

Actually, our love affair with chilli sauce and pouring them on top of any kind of food is a pet peeve of mine. We eat pizza with chilli sauce. There are people asking for them when eating spaghetti bolognaise (like, you need it with that? Seriously?). Huge dollops needed when eating fried chicken or burgers. Or fried mee. Why of why? For me personally, chilli sauce masks the real taste of the food served. But hey! That's just me.

Pit Stop At Gift Shops

and this particular gift shop is for all things One Piece, over at Huis Ten Bosch. 

 Get your wallets and purse ready! Let's get ready to do some spending!

 

They have everything you probably want. Confectionaries, items of clothing, stationeries, toys and even stamps! Which we have to absolutely get

plus a postcard. We always make a point to send a postcard to ourselves at each different city we visited when we vacation. It makes nice souvenir for us. ^^

Fancy a snack?

Gotta love this sight. Waiting in line patiently to play that One Piece card game. And gotta love the fact that kids were courteous enough not to hog the machine and let others have a go at it too.

There's a One Piece restaurant too, selling all One Piece inspired menu. We didn't eat there though. We went elsewhere for our lunch.

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. ^^

A Small Lake At The Edge Of Town

Lake Kinrinko is a natural landmark in Yufuin other than Mount Yufu. Lake Kinrinko means "Golden scale Lake" or "shining scales of fish in the setting sun". I believe kin = gold. Rin = scales (of carp?). Ko = lake. Right?

Legend has it that there's a dragon that causes hot spring water to gush out from the lake.

Visiting the lake in the early morning allowed us to see the lake covered with milky white morning mist, caused by the half-cold, half-warm water of the lake.

Visit it in the evening and one can expect the Lake living up to its "golden scale" name.

The floating torii at Tenso Shrine that I blogged about, earlier.

Now, whose out enjoying their morning bath at the warm lake? ^^ Their peaceful morning bath ritual was interrupted by the visitors soon after.

After spending about an hour enjoying a quiet stroll by the lake, we had to made our retreat when tour groups came to the lake in droves. Zaini back to our cottage and me, a quick run around the neighbourhood.

A Shrine By The Lake

Tenso Shrine, a small shrine by the Lake Kinrinko that we stumbled upon when Zaini and I were taking an early morning stroll by the lake.

It was pretty much deserted when we got there. Still early in the morning, I guess.

See those stickers plastered on the shrine's building? If you want to know more about it, head over to Rurousha's and read about religious graffiti.

I love this particular shot. Zaini waited patiently to capture just the right moment.

The temple's yard, with a blanket of lovely autumn leaves.

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!