Iwakuni

Revvy from the hostel told me about the trip she made to Kitakyushu and it sounded interesting enough for me to check it out. Kitakyushu literally means "the north of Kyushu" and it's comprised of several smaller cities like Kokuro and Mojiko that were added together to form the bigger city of Kitakyushu. My plan was to start in Kokura, which is more or less the center of the city and work my way up throught Mojiko where i planned to take a bike to Shimonoseki on Honshu, the main island of Japan. A very short Shinkansen ride took me to Kokura where a nice castle is situated. I walked to the castle in about twenty minutes while enjoying a doner sandwich mady by a Turkish guy calld Metin in a foodcar. It was slightly adapted to Japanese tast but absolutely delicious. The castle was small but nice and the interior was filled with a lot of displays on the history of Kitakyushu and Kokura in particular. As i was looking out over Kokura from the top floor of the castle, i heard music coming from a nearby shopping mall. It sounded like regular J-Pop but i had to check it out. As i got to the shopping mall i could just see the end of a performance by a girl group called QunQun, comprised of roughly 16 year old girls. I was kind of disappointed to have missed the show but then maybe an even more interesting part began. A table was placed on stage and the fans (a lot of them middle aged) could get a meet and greet, autograph or even a picture with their favourite girls. All for a fair amount of money obviously. Now this may seem a bit creepy for western terms but keep in mind that this is Japan. It's something that's called Otaku culture and it's actually pretty common. Nevertheless it's still interesting to observe and so i stayed for a while until i'd seen enough and went on to my next destination, Mojiko. Mojiko is a somewhat older port town, one of the first to be opened after a more that 200 year period of seclusion. One of the most traded items in Mojiko is bananas. All around town you see shops selling everything related to bananas from little souvenirs to cakes and whatnot. Every now and then i would see a group of people screaming to eachother while one of them was rhythmitically hitting a banana box, while 10 people or more were seated on seats watching the entire show. It looked a bit odd but after asking one of the ladies in the group it turned out to be an auction where bananas were sold to this small crowd. And even though i could not understand one word of what they were saying it was really fun to watch the crowd and the auctioneer interact.
It was time to cross the straight between Kyushu and Honshu. I had read that there is a pedestrian/cyclist tunnel that you can walk throuhg. It's roughly 800 meters and it takes you from Mojiko on Kyushu to Shimonoseki on the westernmost point of Honshu. My first plan was to rent a bike but the weather was nice and i had plenty of time so i chose to walk there instead. It was only a 8km walk. I crossed the Mojiko harbor and after a while saw a building that said "Kanmon" tunnel. This was it! I took the elevator down and as i got out i stared into the pedestrian tunnel. It looked just like any other tunnel but just smaller and just suited for pedestrians and cyclists. Crossing the strait this way took about 10 to 15 minutes and the small incline mad the walk pretty easy. And old man whom i talked to in the elevator used the tunnel as excercise to stay fit, as he passed me again on his way back to Kyushu.
I got out at the Shimonoseki side and set about to Shimonoseki station which was still almost 5 kilometers away. The road lead me through some nice neighbourhoods and i visited some shrines along the way. It was time to get lunch and i started actively looking for a restaurant that selled Fugu. Fugu is a highly poisonous fish that only a select group of chefs are allowed to prepare. One small mistake and the entire fish becomes (deadly) poisonous. This is also the reason those restaurants are hard to find. What i didn't know is for exactly this same reason this dish is also extremely pricey. Prices start at 70 euros for only a couple of slices of Fugu and some miso soup. Oh well, sushi doesn't sound that bad all of a sudden. :-P I got me some nice plates of sushi at a local kaiten sushi. One of which was mentaiko, the eggsack of a female fish, which is a local specialty as well. It's hard to explain the taste but it's a little bitter with a mushy consistency. Of course i ate way too much sushi and slightly stuff i was back on course for Shimonoseki station. After passing through the shopping area and finding my way through the maze of roads i almost directly got a train back to Kokora and consequently Fukuoka. I got back to the hostel with some brewskis and quickly met up with some other guests from Korea, Taiwan and Japan for some good talks and laughs. This was a rich day!Read more