Nagasaki~A delayed post

three weeks ago i had an academic conference in Nagasaki. only me and my professor went to this conference, I was kinda worried that it would get really awkward and cold situation with him but turned it was quite a fun trip. 

We met at the Itami airport, He told me that he met a sales person from Nikon, and that we don't have to go to the conference venue by bus. It was a hot and sunny day in Nagasaki when we arrived. The Nikon's sales took us to eat lunch with them in a hotel up on a mountain where you can see the city and ocean while enjoying your food. I chose to eat the local specialty ちゃんぽん (chanpon), well chanpon it's actually originated from china. after lunch they took us to our conference hotel. It's an old big hotel located up on the hill, I can say that I don't like the hotel, but the food is really good.

Saturday afternoon at 12.30 PM the gakkai ended, time to see the city. First place we visited was the peace park. It's a memorial park for the Atomic bomb victims

From the park we walked 5 minutes to see a red-bricked church, I forgot the name of the church, and from there we walked again to the atomic bomb epicenter.

After finished with the atomic bombs tour we took the city street car to the megane bridge. megane means glasses in japanese and this bridge does resembles a glasses (as seen in photo below). I was very lucky that when i visited this city they have the Ajisai festival, ajisai or hydrangea is one of my favourite plant. There were various kinds and colours of hydrangea put near the bridge, just beautiful.

From the megane bridge, i went back to the nagasaki station to check in then rest for a while, before i continue exploring the city. After 2 hours of sleep, LOL! i went out to the Glover garden, a Scotland garden, it is located on top of the hills, but before i went there, I passed a ferry terminal and there i could see a very big cruise ship parked there. This is the closest i've ever been to the giants of the sea, if I'm not mistaken the ship's name was "Royal Caribbean". 

Back to Glover garden, it was a 15 minutes walk from the ferry terminal to the glover garden. There is a lift from that will take you to the garden. Honestly i don't really fancy this garden, i mean this is basically a european style garden with european style house. Went to the top of the garden, there you get to see the city and the sea. Other than the view from the top, i don't find this garden really fascinating. It was a wasted of 600¥,LOL!!!

On the way down from the garden i passed another church, this one is more famous than the first one i  mentioned above. Maybe because this one is located near the Glover park, but I like this white church more than the red-brick church.

The next day i didn't have many times left, wanted to go to the kyujukyushima (99 islands) but i woke up late and the weather was not good either. So i just visited the atomic bomb museum.

I didn't take many photos at the museum. I might have different view about the museum than others. I come from the country where we gained our independence due to atomic bomb, I myself don't agree with the use of atomic bomb by the US. There were this issue that bothers me,  that the japanese students/children aren't thought about the bad and wrong things their predecessor did during wars. All they were taught are that Japan saved the SE asian from the Europe occupation. When I visited the museum, I realized how good japanese are at making dramatic story, i almost cried hearing the narration from the radio that you can rent for 163¥. But then I remembered they were cruel and they don't want to admit their wrong doing during pacific war, so i feel relieved. Don't get me wrong, it's not that i don't feel the pain of the atomic bomb victims but during the pacific war somebody had to stop Japan. 

Overall, Nagasaki is not interesting city for me. I would suggest you visit this city if you have extra money. The flight from Osaka is quite expensive, return flight with ANA cost me 56000¥. Even though I don't like the city atmosphere, I feel glad to have experienced this city courtesy of my laboratory. My lab paid for the return flight and also the hotel. That's the good thing of being a desperate phd student. 

In two weeks I will go for another conference in Izumo at Shimane prefecture. Izumo is famous for the izumo shrine, the oldest shrine in Japan. I'll post the report later.

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Hakata (博多) ~ kyushu trip day two

Second day of our trip to Kyushu was Hakat (博多); this is the center of Fukuoka prefecture. Sanyo shinkansen stop at this city, from here on you can continue your journey to the other cities in kyushu such as; kagoshima, nagasaki, and well that's the only two places that I know.

first night in Hakata, after we came from kita-kyushu, we visited tenjin (天神); shopping center, entertainment center is what Tenjin is. Major Department store also open their flagship store here. But this is not what we wanted, tenjin is similar to Osaka-umeda or shinjuku-tokyo. We wanted to eat the famous hakata ramen at  Yatai (food stall). Yatai is a food stall along the street they have chair/bench for you to sit and eat. Yatai can be find anywhere in the town but usually they are located along the river. After asking the tourist information center we walked 15 mins from tenjin to the canal city where the yatai are located. there are around 10 food stall and all of them were full so we have to wait. One menu catched aour attention 'Grilled ramen' (焼ラーメン). After finished eating at one yatai, we moved to another yatai. in the next yatai we tried the famous 'Hakata Ramen' (博多ラーメン) and 'Grilled cod roe' (焼明太子).

This is how they cook the grilled ramen

 The Grilled ramen ready to serve

Hakata ramen and griled codroe

The next morning, we visited one of the famous park in fukuoka Ohori park (大堀公園). This is a chinese garden with big lake and a chinese pavillion . there is a little island in the middle of the lake. from ohori park we went to fukuoka tower near the fukuoka bay. there is a beach in front of  the fukuoka tower, but the water was a little bit cold at that time so couldn't play i n the water. from fukuoka we went to canal city visited the ramen stadium and some little shopping.

Fukuoka Tower

 The beach near Fukuoka tower

 Canal city-fukuoka

Ramen Stadium at canal city

 Chinese Pavillion inside ohori park

Ohori park

From canal city, we went straight to hakata station to our bus terminal, time to go back to Osaka. Overall I like Hakata, I seriously consider about living in this city, but then I realized that there are not many International flight to fukuoka. That will be a problem for me when I want to go back to Indonesia. I find out that Hakata is cheaper than Osaka. city bus start from 100 yen. they even have the 100 yen bus that will take you to famous destination. Taxi is also cheaper, in Osaka the initial cost of taxi is 680 yen in fukuoka it is start from 580 yen. on the last part of this post, I will tell you how much I spend for this trip. If you want to go by shinkansen from Osaka the return ticket for nozomi around 28000 yen, it is covered by Japan rail pass but of course not with nozomi. If you want to go by plane there are many flights to fukuoka by JAL or ANA. Peach airline, Japan low cost carrier also have flight to fukuoka from Kansai International airport, during low season return ticket is around 10000 yen , could be less.

Total cost 

return night bus ticket : 12000 yen

one night hotel in Hakata : 4600yen/night/2 person (really Cheap!!!I was surprised myself

Shinkansen kokura-hakata (one way) : 2200 yen (non reserved seat)

eating/omiyage/transportation : 10000 yen (this is basically what I reserved to spent in this two days trip)

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Kawachi fuji garden (河内藤 園) ~ A Secret Garden in 北九州 (Kita-kyushu)

This is a 3 weeks late post. I've been caught up by my 'soon to be publish' paper, some new research project and a couples of academic conference right as soon as I finished my Golden Week vacation.

My friend and I had planned this trip since January, we wanted to visit the 河内藤

園(Kawachi fuji garden) in kita-kyushu to see the Wisteria tunnel. We saw the photo from the internet, it was beautiful. the flowers only bloom from mid-April to mid-May, Since my friend had to go back to Indonesia at may 11th, We decided to go to this garden during Golden Week.

We took a night bus for we both never experience it before but the most important thing is because it's the cheapest mode of transportation to go to kita-kyushu. We left Osaka at 22.00 on May 5th, the bus was very comfortable that we fell asleep immediately. We arrived around 7.15AM at Kokura station. If you go by shinkansen you need to get off at this station too. from kokura station take JR train to Yahata station It takes around 15-20 minutes to go to yahata from kokura. from yahata station there is a free shuttle bus to the garden. the shuttle bus goes to Ajisai onsen near the garden, from the onsen it'll only take 10 minutes walk to see the wisteria.

So here goes the silly part of this trip. As I mentioned there is a shuttle bus to the garden, but you can go to the garden with city bus too, you have to pay 240 yen. Since the shuttle bus is crowded wit local and some Chinese tourists, we didn't want to be cramped in a small bus with them so we decided to take the city bus. it turned out that the city bus stop 7 KM away from the garden and what we didn't know is that the garden located at a mountain, so yeah we have to walk (with a little bit of climbing) around 1 hour to reach the garden. That Long?..Actually if you walk fast and not distracted by the view you can get to the gaden by 30 mins. But it wasn't a mistake at all taking the city bus, since on our way to the garden there is this Kawachi reservoir, this a big lake  surrounded by the green hills.

 View along the sidewalk to the garden

 Kawachi reservoir

Kawachi reservoir

After 1 hour of walking we finally arrived at the kawachi fuji garden. Since it was golden week there were so many tourists and the admission fee were expensive too, we have to pay 1000 yen. 

Inside the garden, the view just beautiful not to mention the flowers smells good too, but be careful with bees. There were a lot of bees flying around inside the tunnel. the tunnel is about 500 M (not so sure if it's correct) and consist of not only the purple wisteria but also the white, pink and light purple color flowers.  Since it was crowded with many peoples taking a good photos were not easy. I made promise to come again next year during weekdays so I can get a good photos.

The wisteria tunnel

purple color wisteria is the main flowers

in this garden

The pink colour wisteria

The wisteria tunnel as seen from outside

We left the garden at 2PM, before going to hakata city we paid a visit to the kokura-castle. It is a small castle 5 minutes walk from JR nishi-kokura station. After that we walked around 20 minutes to kokura station, then took shinkansen to Hakata then check in to the our hotel.

Kokura castle

Honestly 1 day was not enough to explore kita-kyushu. There were so many places I wanted to see. I will surely comeback and visit again next year. And next year I will save more money so I can take shinkansen/airplane to Kyushu. despite the bus was comfort enough, still I want to sleep and rest well at night. 

continued on next post....

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