Saturday meant it was time for us to leave Yakushima Island and continue moving on with our trip. Naturally, it was beautiful and warm outside. Just in time for us to head out. I guess it’s better that we have nice weather to leave on the ferry otherwise we’d be stuck indoors again with heavy rains. We had our last breakfast with our new friends Matt and Julie overlooking this gorgeous mountain view.
I had started a habit of packing a few small travel bottles of our honey that we harvest in the fall. This was a perfect opportunity to gift some to Kentaro as he was an incredible host. He said he was SO happy (ureshi) and asked where in the US we lived. We said Minnesota and he said “ahhh Minnesota Vikings!” He told me he’s a big NFL fan, specifically a Buffalo Bills fan. He’s been to the US once 25 years ago where he started his trip in NYC and went to Buffalo to see a live game.
We said goodbye to all of our new friends and headed to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
We had a moderately long travel day. 40 minute drive to the ferry port, 2 hour jetfoil from Yakushima Island to Kagoshima, 5 hour shinkansen to Osaka, and then 25 min train to Kyoto. I punched it all into google maps and it estimated a 6:39pm arrival time into Kyoto station.
We arrived to the ferry port and I went to the check in desk to get our tickets. I showed the woman my booking email and she asked for the original ticket that was printed which is intended to be a round trip ticket. I started sweating because I’m terrible with documents. There have been times where I’ve thrown my costco receipt away immediately after paying without even thinking about it before getting checked out at the door. THANKFULLY Joanna is the document keeper and she kept the ticket in her bag. Otherwise it probably would have been a $175 mistake for both of us.
I picked seats at the front of the boat on the first floor because Matt and Julie said they could see flying fish jumping out of the water when they came to Yakushima. You definitely felt the rocking of the boat more from where we were sitting. Didn’t see any flying fish :/
Got a nice shot of our ferry in front of Sakurajima volcano. Maybe next time we’re in Japan we’ll make another trek out here to hike it.
Caught a taxi to the shinkansen train because I promised Joanna we wouldn’t take the long way this time. Picked up some bento boxes and jumped on our train which left promptly at 1:45pm. We got into Osaka station around 5 and it was just a mad house of people going to where they needed to go. We made our connection and I don’t know why I’m still shocked by this but we arrived exactly at 6:39pm just as Google estimated. The distance between Kagoshima and Kyoto is about 560 miles. If we were to drive that distance, it would take 11 hours without stops. We did it in 5 hours. Seriously, amazing.
We got dinner at the Kyoto station since it would take too long to drop off our stuff at the hotel and find a restaurant nearby as things tend to closer earlier around 9pm compared to other larger cities. Found a soba restaurant and got a dipping soba called zarusoba with fried tempura shrimp and veggies. We of course had to stop to get some ice cream as well. Got a snow mountain with matcha syrup and a scoop of matcha ice cream on top.
Originally, I had booked an Airbnb with its own outdoor onsen bath but changed it last minute for this hotel as it’s closer to the city. It’s a really nice place with a public bath as well. Joanna was still drowsy from the dramamine she took earlier for the boat so I went and used the public bath. The water was wayyyy more comfortable where I wasn’t scalding my skin.
It was past 10pm and I was feeling kind of hungry. I also wanted to explore the neighborhood we were in so I looked up Izakaya’s in our area. It took 15 minutes to get to one that Google said closed at midnight but they said they were already closed at 10:30. I walked another 15 minutes to another one and they welcomed me inside. The guy handed me an English menu (how did he know?) and I scoffed at the prices. They were charging $50, $75, and $100 for several course meals.
This was pop quiz time where I had to figure out what was on the Japanese menu as google translate doesn’t do well with hand written stuff. I saw さば (saba) and recognized it as mackerel. Ordered that thinking it was grilled mackerel and a plum wine soda. My mistake, it was mackerel sashimi not grilled, it was still good nonetheless where it only cost $10 for the sashimi and drink, and was much cheaper than what I could get at home.
I paid my bill, thanked them for the meal, and started walking back to the hotel. I quickly realized that the izakaya I was looking for on Google was immediately next door, full of people at 11am, and smelled like grilled meat from the outside. Guess I’ll try again tomorrow?
560 miles in 5 hours AND right on time is insane! We don’t even get to Madison in that time.