Showing posts with label PeiPei 8-year-old. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PeiPei 8-year-old. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Japan Travel with Children 8D7N Itinerary (Kyushu + Shimonoseki)

During June holiday in 2017, many of our friends travelled to Japan too, they travelled to places like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hokkaido, so I thought that not many Singaporeans would consider Kyushu when they plan a trip to Japan. Who knows, DaDi met his ex-colleague in a restaurant, and then we met some Singaporeans on our second last day in Kyushu. So it seems that actually Kyushu has become one of the favourite places in Japan that Singaporeans would visit!

As compared to Okinawa (read our Okinawa travelogue here), Kyushu is easier to go around with public transport.

Check out our 8 tips for Japan Kyushu railway trip with children, 5 tips for taking public transport in Kyushu, and our Japan Kyushu Food Guide!


Day 1 Fukuoka (福岡)
  • Lunch: McDonald's at JR Hakata City
  • Uminonakamichi Park
  • Dinner: Ikkousha (博多一幸舎) at JR Hakata City
  • Stay: Toyoko Inn Hakata-guchi Ekimae

Uminonakamichi Park

Day 2 Fukuoka (福岡)

Cooking lesson at Child Kitchen

Dazaifu



Day 3 Fukuoka (福岡) - Kumamoto (熊本) - Fukuoka (福岡)

Kumamon Square

JR Hakata JR City Roof Garden

JR Hakata JR City Roof Garden



Day 4 Fukuoka (福岡) - Yufuin (由布院) - Beppu (別府)
Yufuin no Mori

Yufuin

Musouen



Day 5 Oita (大分)

Sanrio Harmonyland


Day 6 Oita (大分) - Fukuoka (福岡)

African Safari


 Day 7 Fukuoka (福岡) - Mojiko (門司港) - Shimonoseki (下関) - Fukuoka (福岡)

Karato Market


 Day 8
  • Home sweet home


Our Post Trip Reflection

Kyushu is a nice place for family travel, there are plenty of sightseeing spots, and it is considered child-friendly. As usual, our family travel focuses on experiential learning as a family. In addition to sightseeing spots, we included ramen and gyoza cooking class in our itinerary. 

The Japanese locals in Kyushu, especially the elderly, are very friendly, when they saw us speaking in English, they would talk to us. It seems that they have a "conversation template" - they would ask where we are from, how old how our children are, and end off the conversation by saying that our children are "kawaii" (cute)!

Getting from Fukuoka Airport to city area is very convenient, there is shuttle bus service between the international and domestic airports, and it takes a few minutes to take subway from domestic airport to the town area. Alternatively, you can take direct bus from international airport to town area, but the traffic is quite heavy during peak hours.

Travelling around Kyushu via public transportation is not too difficult, except that there are not many trains and buses in rural areas. As compared to other family overseas trips, this trip was slightly more challenging for our children as we had to walk very fast to catch the trains or buses!

We only explored the northern part of Kyushu during this trip. If we have a chance, we would love to explore the southern part of Kyushu!



Our Japan (June 2017) Travelogue


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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

5 Tips for Taking Public Transport in Kyushu (Japan)

When we have decided to travel to Kyushu (Japan), the first question that our children asked was, "Are we driving?" Well, a year before we visited Kyushu, we went to Okinawa (read our Okinawa travelogue here). In Okinawa, the public transportation system is not very developed, therefore we did self-drive tour. That was why the children had an impression that going to Japan = self-driving! While we could have considered driving in Kyushu, we decided to take public transportation since the places that we visited were accessible by public transportation.

Tips #1. Take trains in Kyushu for special travel experience

Taking trains enhances our travel experience in Kyushu! We planned our itinerary in such a way that we could take as many sightseeing trains as possible. These are some trains that we have taken during this trip.

Nishitetsu Tabito (旅人) - read our experience in this post.



Japan Rail Yufuin no Mori ((ゆふいんの森) - read our experience in this post.



Japan Rail Aso Boy! (あそぼーい！) - read our experience in this post.



Mojiko Retro Train Shiokaze-go (潮風号) - read our experience in this post.



Japan Rail Limited Express Sonic:



Does the head rest look like Mickey Mouse's ears? The leg room for the seats that we had was so big that we had to lean forward to eat the lunch bento!


We took Limited Express Sonic from Beppu to Hakata. When the train reached Kokura Station, interestingly, some passengers stood up and turned their seats to face the reverse direction! Then I realised that the train reversed its direction and moved on to Hakata! What a special experience!

Japan Rail Shinkansen (bullet train):


Getting from Hakata to Kumamoto (100+ km apart) took only 30+ minutes! It is even faster than getting from Changi to Tuas!

If you are a railway fan, you would be delighted when you are waiting for your train at the platform, because you will get to see other beautiful trains.

Japan Rail Huis Ten Bosch

Japan Rail Kyushu Odan Tokkyu

Nishitetse Suido

Nishitetse Suido

When you are taking sightseeing trains, remember to collect the souvenir card and stamp on it!





Tips #2. How to ride subway / train in Kyushu

If you are not using any transport pass (we shall elaborate on this in Tips #4) or prepaid IC, then you have to purchase your subway / train ticket from the ticketing machine.

Check the fare on the sign board above before you purchase the ticket. Select the language, select the fare on the screen, select the number of adults and / or children on the left side of the screen, then put in money, collect the tickets and change. So simple!




Insert the ticket into the ticket slot when you walk through the gantry. Don't forget to collect it back after you walk through the gantry! And please don't lose your ticket which is quite small in size. The ticket would be collected by the gantry at your destination, so take a photo with it before you exit!



At big train stations like Fuokuoka Station, there are many platforms. So how do we ensure that we board the correct train?



There are displays at the station, so check which train line and which direction that you are heading towards, then look for the the train number. Check the last column of the display which indicates the track number.




Go to the platform, look at the signs on the ground or above you to find Car No.





Tips #3. How to ride a local bus in Kyushu

At the bus stop, you can check the schedule. The left hand column (e.g. 8, 9, 10...) is the hour, then the second column is the minute. "平" means weekdays, "土" means Saturday, and "日" means Sunday. So for example, a bus would be heading towards Yokoku Station (暘谷駅) at 952 hr, 1132 hr and so on.



In Singapore, we board the bus from the front door. However in Japan, we have to board the bus from the back door. For payment, you can use prepaid IC card, which is similar to our EZ-link card.

Alternatively, if you can pay your bus fare by cash. First, take a ticket from a machine next to the back door when you board the bus.




How much bus fare to pay? Check the display in front of the bus, and look for the number on your ticket when you alight from the bus, the bus fare is displayed below that number.


In our example, the number on our tickets was 5. So when we were approaching our destination, we checked the bus fare under number 5, the display showed 170 yen. This is the bus fare for adult. For child above 5 years old, the bus fare is half, but have to round up to the nearest 10 yen, so in this case, each child had to pay 90 yen.

When we paid by cash, we were glad to see that there was a change exchange machine next to the bus driver. Just slot in our dollar notes, then it would exchange coins for us! After that, we just dropped the exact amount into the cash box. We encountered a nice driver who did everything for us - from changing 1000 yen note into coins using the machine, to calculate the total amount for 4 of us, and drop the coins into the cash box!



Tips #4. How to save money on Kyushu public transportation

There are many transport passes available. When you are using the pass on bus or train, you just need to show the pass to the bus driver or the staff next to the gantry of train station.

Let us share with you those that we had purchased during our trip.

Japan Rail (JR) Pass
As we are tourists, we can purchase JR Pass, in particular, we purchased JR Northern Kyushu Rail 5-Day Pass. Adult pass is 10000 yen (about SGD124), while child pass is 5000 yen (about SGD62). We visited a few places - Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Mojiko and Oita. If we do not have JR Pass, the total train fare per adult would be about 25000 yen! Getting JR Pass saved us about 15000 yen (SGD186) per adult, that is a substantial amount of saving!



You can purchase JR Kyushu Pass directly from selected JR stations in Kyushu, Hakata Port Beetle Counter, or TISCO Travel Information Counter at Fukuoka International Airport. Alternatively, you can purchase an exchange voucher in Singapore first, then exchange the actual JR Pass at selected JR stations in Kyushu. We bought our exchange voucher from Klook, it was cheaper than other places when it had promotion, but be ready to wait for a few days for them to send you the vouchers. Once we arrived in Kyushu, we exchanged our JR Pass at the ticket office at Hakata Station. You can specify that date that you want the pass to be valid. For example, when we exchanged our JR Pass, we informed that staff that the first day to use the pass was 2 days later.

In addition, do reserve your seats, especially for sightseeing trains and long distance trains. This can also be done at ticket office. Before we departed Singapore, I already filled up the rail pass reserved seat application form to indicate all the reserved seats that we needed for the trip, so I exchanged our JR passes and reserved the seats at the same time.


Information on JR Pass:
JR Kyushu 
Japan National Tourist Organisation


Fukuoka Tourist City Pass
We purchased Fukuoka Tourist City Pass 820 Yen Pass when we reached Fukuoka Airport.


On our first day, we travelled from Fukuoka Airport to Hakata Station via subway, then we took JR trains from Hakata Station to Uminonakamichi Park, and back to Hakata Station. Therefore, this pass saved us some money!

The other type of pass is 1340 Yen Pass covers Dazaifu area. We did not get this pass for our trip to Dazaifu on the second day, because it turned out that we would not save any money!

To use the pass, just use a coin or key to scratch the silver part of the pass on the date that you wish to use it. Please do not scratch the wrong date, otherwise you have to purchase a new pass!


Information on Fukuoka Tourist City Pass
Fukuoka Tourist City Pass Guide
Yoka Navi


 Kumamoto City Tram One Day Pass
At Kumamoto, one of the main public transportation is city tram. The tram fare is fixed at 170 yen for adult and 90 yen for child per ride. Therefore, if you are going to take the tram 3 times and above within a day, it would be wise to purchase Kumamoto City Tram 1 Day Pass from Kumamoto Station, it is 500 yen for adult, and 250 yen for child.


Information on Kumamoto City Tram One Day Pass
Kumamoto City Transport Bureau


Other Public Transport Discount Passes
Nishitetsu Discount Tickets



Tips #5. Useful websites and smartphone applications

I usually use Yahoo Transit website. This website is available in Japanese only. I find it easy to use even with my half-past-six command of Japanese language. It has information on the cheapest / fastest / most convenient method to get from one place to the other, the duration and the fare, it even has information on which train track to board the train.

For English, you can use:
  • Hypedia - timetable and route search for railway and flight within Japan
  • Jorudan (iOS / Android) - transit planner which searches for the route, fare and schedule of trains and airplanes in Japan


Our Japan (June 2017) Travelogue


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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Japan Kyushu Food Guide

In this blog post, we are sharing with you some of the delicious food that we had during our trip in Kyushu (Japan) in June 2017.

Tonkutsu Ramen and Mentaiko (明太子)

Tonkutsu (pork bone) ramen is a speciality in Kyushu. The soup base is made of pork bone which is boiled over a long period of time, so it is thick and creamy!

Another specialty in Hakata is mentaiko, which is small fish roe. It is very salty on its own, therefore, it is usually eaten with rice, omelette or spaghetti. 



In Japan, some of the famous ramen restaurant chains include Ichiran (一蘭), Ikkousha (一幸舍), Ippudo (一風堂) and so on. In fact, some of them have outlets in Singapore. Anyway, since we were at Hakata, we would like to try the original Hakata ramen! We had tried Ichiran in Hong Kong, and had attended ramen and gyoza cooking class at Ippudo on our second day in Kyushu, therefore, we tried out Ikkousha at Hakata. We ordered Tonkutsu special (extra slices of char siew) and Mentai don. Our children had their first experience to order food using the machine! It was thoughtful of the restaurant to serve free flow of iced tea to quench the thirst!


Yatai  (屋台)

In the evening, you would see small mobile food stalls at Tenjin (天神), Nakasu (中洲) and Nagahama (長浜) in Fukuoka. Due to hygienic reason, they serve only cooked food, so please don't expect to have sashimi at the yatai.


It was a pity that we didn't have experience to dine at yatai! We were full after eating Japanese souffle pancakes at Gram when we saw the yatai at Tenjin area!

Information about yatai in Fukuoka: http://yatai.fukuoka.jp


Gram Cafe and Pancake 

"Wow!" We exclaimed when we saw the premium pancakes at Gram Cafe and Pancake. The pancakes were so thick and fluffy! 



To make it even more special, the premium pancakes are not served throughout the day - there are only 3 time slots daily, at 11 am, 3 pm and 6 pm, and there are only 20 sets of premium pancakes available at each time slot! We reached the branch at Tenjin at 5.30 pm, and thought that we were super early, but guess what, we were not the first one who ordered the premium pancakes! We were the fourth in the queue!

If you are planning to have these premium pancakes, please take note you have to take photo very fast, as the upper layer would slide down! In addition, each person in your group has to order at least one item.


Tempura Style Fried Chicken (とり天) and Dango Jiro (だんご汁)

Tempura Style Fried Chicken and Dango Jiro are specialty in Oita Prefecture. What is Dango Jiro? It is something like mee hoon kueh in Singapore, and the soup base is made of miso. There is also pork slices and bean curd skin, as well as plenty of scallion.



We had both specialty in a set meal at Bungo Chaya (豊後茶屋), located at Beppu Station. We met Singaporeans there on the two evenings when we had dinner! DaDi even met his ex-colleague there!


Beef Tongue

As I was researching on Kyushu trip, I read a few Taiwanese blogs that raved about たんや at Hakata Station. They shared that the breakfast set was value for money. But we didn't try the breakfast set since we had free breakfast at our hotel Toyoko Inn, so we visited たんや for dinner.

The amount of grilled beef tongue was rather generous. However, this became a problem to me as my teeth were not sharp enough to chew the grilled beef tongue. The rice was special, it consisted of rolled oat. To eat the rice, we had to mix it with the grated yam and raw egg. I would say it was an acquired taste.



We also ordered beef tongue stew. It was very delicious! The beef tongue was very tender. I was surprised that this yummy dish was not mentioned by those Taiwanese blogs.




Aso Milk

Aso milk was so fresh and delicious! Unlike the one that I drank in Okinawa, which had a strong "cow smell" when I opened the packet, Aso milk had a nice fragrance.





Croquette

Try some special croquettes that you don't get to eat in Singapore! For example, horse meat croquette and sea urchin croquette in Kumamoto, and Bungo beef croquette at Yufuin.

horse meat croquette

sea urchin croquette

croquettes in Yufuin

Conveyor Belt Sushi

To be honest, I don't have patience to keep my eyes on the sushi on the conveyor belt, and "catch" it when it appears (or "lose" it when the patron next to me has taken it off the conveyor belt right in front of my eyes)! I prefer dining at sushi restaurants in which we can order food directly. We chanced upon  魚べい ヨドバシ博多店 next to Hakata Station, this is under Genki Sushi group.


Ordering food from the tablet is quite easy, there are English and Chinese menu, so don't worry even if you don't understand Japanese. The sushi is served in an interesting manner, it takes a train or car! Some of the sushi on the menu is only 100 yen (SGD1.25) per plate! And there is unlimited flow of green tea!


Seafood

For seafood lovers, do visit Karato Fish Market at Shimonoseki (Honshu), which is near the northern part of Kyushu. Read our adventure at Mojiko and Shimonoseki in this post.




One seafood that you would not want to miss - pufferfish! It is so much cheaper at Karato Fish Market than at other parts of Japan!



Lotteria (Fast Food)

When we were at Beppu, we had breakfast at Lotteria at Beppu Station for two mornings! The children love the chocolate drink!



We were amazed by the efficiency of the staff, who single-handedly managed the ordering, serving and making drink!


Calbee

We visited Calbee Plus outlets at Okinawa and Hong Kong, and found that different outlets have different menu. So when we saw the outlet at Hakata Station, we would not give it a miss! We ordered Kyushu soy-sauce flavour potato chips, they were piping hot as they were freshly prepared upon order. How I wished more potato chips were given to us at that price!



Hattendo Cream Bun

The custard cream is mixed with fresh cream, it is not too sweet.





Yoshinoya

Eating out in Japan is not cheap. To prevent our wallet from having a big hole, we dined at Yoshinoya, which offers food at affordable price. Some food that is served at Yoshinoya in Japan is not found in Singapore's menu, for example, unagi juu, beef and salmon set meal, as well as black curry with natto.





Food from Convenience Stores

Another place to find food at affordable price - convenience stores! They offer bento, sandwiches, fried chicken, oden and so on! We visited the convenience stores every day when we were in Japan! 

During our visit in June 2017, I was glad to have the limited Uchi Cafe Sweets X Godiva chocolate roll cake. It was a heaven for chocolate lovers!




Sweet Treats at Yufuin

If you have a sweet tooth like me, you would like to visit Yufuin for the variety of sweet treats! Read our travelogue at Yufuin!




Our Japan (June 2017) Travelogue


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