I really had no plans for us here in Kitakyushu besides spending the night and then getting out of here to go on to our next destination. I did google the city when I was making our trip itinerary and saw that Toto (yes the toilet manufacturer) was headquartered near where we were planning on staying and they had a free museum which conveniently opened before we needed to head to Fukuoka
Today’s our full day at sea until we arrive in Kyushu at 9pm. I’m going to take the day off from blogging and just have Chat GPT do it for me..
Greetings from the deck of a ship bound for Shinmoji in Kyushu! Today has been a mix of tranquil ocean views, personal relaxation, and a bit of physical exertion. Here’s a look at my day as we sail from the bustling harbor of Yokosuka to the serene beauty of the southern coast of Japan.
Started the day off with some free breakfast at the hotel. I was too hungry after our first night on arrival and got full off our 7-11 haul at 4am, which lead to completely forgetting that the hotel provided breakfast. Really liked the offering, at least to me, it seemed close to Japanese home cooking.
I’m going to summarize my time at Tokyo Disney’s other park DisneySea using guest thoughts from the classic Rollercoaster Tycoon game from the 90s
Got about 2 hours of sleep which was expected due to the jet lag. I was kind of surprised there were several izakayas around that closed at 5am but I didn’t want to deal with translating the menu so we settled on the always reliable 7-11.
The plan for this trip was to leave Minneapolis on Thursday 3/6 and come back home on Monday 3/24. Joanna normally has Tuesdays off so she could use that day to recoup from jet lag. I was so excited to go on this trip that I checked in the moment I got the 24hr heads up email on Wednesday morning.
2024 was a travel drought year. It was year full of good things but we just had so much going on we couldn’t afford the time or the money to do one of the typical trips we usually do.
This is always the hardest post to write because I have to acknowledge that the trip is over and piling responsibilities back home take over. The night before was our last meal in Japan. Joanna said let’s close it out with a bang and get Okonomiyaki one last time.
I just did the math, of the days we’ve been on this trip we’ve averaged 14,600 steps per day. The most we walked was 26,024 steps when we went to the bamboo forest on June 5th. At this point of the trip our feet were tiiireed. However, it was the last full day for the trip so we had to make it count.
Generally this entire trip has been pretty freeform where we didn’t have any where specific to be at any given time. Today was a bit more structured as I bought us tickets to the Osaka aquarium for 11am a little bit more than a week ago and dinner reservations at Kani Doraku at 5:30pm, the restaurant with the giant crab on the front.
