The Great French/Bulgarian/Philippine Summer Backpacking Trip of Kyushu started on the day Viviane went back to Brasil.
It was a pretty strange day full of high emotions, both happy and sad. The entire thing started the day before, actually. We wrapped up the last day of the Senri International School Summer Program Batch 2 with a lot of hugs and tears. I was only teaching in that school for a couple of months and have been with each batch of kids for 2 weeks, but I couldn’t help crying as I watched them drive off in a long procession of buses.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
The teachers and assistant teachers wave goodbye to the kids
The teachers and assistant teachers had our closing snacks, said our good byes to each other and after a while, I took my leave to do a final round of the school. I took pictures of the genkan, the halls, the music classroom, the English classroom, the cafeteria and even the bloody bicycle parking lot. I only had a couple of weeks left before I leave this, my university, my friends and Japan and it was starting to get to me.
I finally got on my bike and cycled away from Senri International School one last time. I biked all the way to Kita-Senri station where I was supposed to meet Viviane, Ninon and Toshi. It was Viv’s last night in Japan and she wanted to spend it clean.
I finally got on my bike and cycled away from Senri International School one last time. I biked all the way to Kita-Senri station where I was supposed to meet Viviane, Ninon and Toshi. It was Viv’s last night in Japan and she wanted to spend it clean.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
Meeting up in Kita Senri Station. Photo taken by Ninon
She wanted to go to an Onsen.
Toshi was nice enough to drive us all to this Onsen in Kyoto where of course, he would have to go sit in a bath all by himself. But he was kinda cool about it. So Ninon, Vivs and I went to the onsen and chatted and steamed ourselves to our heart’s content. We found this oversized bowl and we all climbed in, not caring about personal space and the fact that our limbs were all tangled together, we couldn’t tell which arm belonged to whom and what.
It was, by far, one of the nicest memories I have of Japan. Sometimes when you choose a path outside of what is readily available to you, you tend to stumble upon the most precious of things. The blessings I received in Japan were glorious in number and scope, but nothing beats finding people you can love without question and without agenda. Because I met my two best friends in this country, Japan will always be special to me.
The next day, Ninon and I trooped to Viv’s apartment to go with her to the airport. We were already lugging our huge backpacks around since we were going straight to our overnight train after wishing Viviane bon voyage. Toshi was once again the designated driver and when we got to the airport, Viviane started crying and it was really sad. BUT THEN, she looked at the departures list and saw that her flight was going to be a good two hours late!
It was so funny coz Vivs started to complain that she went and got all teary-eyed only to find out that she wasn’t leaving yet. But, soon enough, it was time for her to board her flight and once more there were a lot of tears and as I watched her go through the gate, I couldn’t help wonder if I will ever see her again.
Toshi was nice enough to drive us all to this Onsen in Kyoto where of course, he would have to go sit in a bath all by himself. But he was kinda cool about it. So Ninon, Vivs and I went to the onsen and chatted and steamed ourselves to our heart’s content. We found this oversized bowl and we all climbed in, not caring about personal space and the fact that our limbs were all tangled together, we couldn’t tell which arm belonged to whom and what.
It was, by far, one of the nicest memories I have of Japan. Sometimes when you choose a path outside of what is readily available to you, you tend to stumble upon the most precious of things. The blessings I received in Japan were glorious in number and scope, but nothing beats finding people you can love without question and without agenda. Because I met my two best friends in this country, Japan will always be special to me.
The next day, Ninon and I trooped to Viv’s apartment to go with her to the airport. We were already lugging our huge backpacks around since we were going straight to our overnight train after wishing Viviane bon voyage. Toshi was once again the designated driver and when we got to the airport, Viviane started crying and it was really sad. BUT THEN, she looked at the departures list and saw that her flight was going to be a good two hours late!
It was so funny coz Vivs started to complain that she went and got all teary-eyed only to find out that she wasn’t leaving yet. But, soon enough, it was time for her to board her flight and once more there were a lot of tears and as I watched her go through the gate, I couldn’t help wonder if I will ever see her again.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
At the Airport before Bibi's flight back to Brasil (Which was rerouted to Peru. hehe)
Ninon and I said our goodbyes to Toshi and then we were off to catch the train from Kansai International Airport to Shin-Osaka station. Inside the train, Ninon and I didn’t say a word, we just sat across from each other quietly. My eyes brimmed with tears and before I knew it I was crying like mad. I looked up to check if Ninon could see me only to find out that tears were streaming down her face too. We stared at each other for a bit and then we started laughing. I’m sure the other Japanese people in the train thought we had gone and lost our senses, but it was just too hilarious at that time.
We arrived in Shin-Osaka station and met up with Asen. We grabbed some stuff to eat (and a couple of beers) to prepare us for the long overnight trip from Osaka to Fukuoka, in the southern island of Kyushu.
To be honest, I was a bit hesitant to join this backpacking trip in the beginning because I was trying to be conservative with my money. I just finished saving up for my exchange program tuition and I didn’t really want to spend much. But Ninon told me that we were gonna travel on the cheap the whole way and the primary requirement of the trip was that we would not spend on accommodations and sleep in our tent every single day. That sounded like an economical and novel adventure to me so I hopped onto the bandwagon and never looked back.
For our Kyushu backpacking trip, we used a ticket called “Seishuun Juuhachi Kippu” (Youthful 18 Ticket) This is a special ticket sold during the school holiday season. The entire idea behind this ticket is so that young people can travel around Japan for cheap and enjoy their youth. However, this ticket can be used by adults and foreigners as well, so I guess they’re pretty lax with the “youthful” concept. The Seishuun 18 Kippu can be used 5 times, for a midnight-to-midnight one day period per time. The ticket is pretty flexible, it can be used by 1 person for 5 days or 5 people for 1 day or any other combination. The ticket costs 11,500 yen and can only be used on local and rapid trains.
We took the Moonlight Shin-Osaka – Hakata train which was scheduled to leave Osaka at almost midnight and arrive in Hakata (Fukuoka) early the next day. Since I was traveling with 2 smokers, we took the smoking cars and man, did I smell like I spent the whole night clubbing. It was pretty fun though, but most of the time, I just slept. In the middle of the night I woke up with Ninon and Asen nowhere to be found. I freaked out and went around looking for them. I finally found them sleeping on the open luggage compartment at one end of the car. Apparently, their legs were too long, they couldn’t sleep well in their seats. That was one of the few instances where I was glad to be born short. Hahaha
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| From The Silken Backpack |
We arrived in Hakata at around 8 in the morning. When we got out of the platform, we were surprised to see that they stamped our 18 kippu twice; one for the night before and one for that morning. In order to maximize our tickets we just decided to keep on traveling that day until we get to somewhere decent.
After a couple of hours doing research on the places to see in Kyushu, with special focus on camping grounds, we found this park at the foot of a dormant volcano in Kagoshima called “Kaimon Sanroku Fureai Kouen”. We all decided on this park and went back to resume our train-hopping adventure.
We were able to pass through Kumamoto and arrive in Hitoyoshi station without much incident. Upon our arrival in Hitoyoshi station, we found that we had almost 3 hours of waiting time for our connecting train. We decided to go out, grab something to eat and try our luck hitch-hiking to Kagoshima.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
Figuring out what to do next in Hitoyoshi Station
We got to the main highway and we really made a funny sight, two tall foreigners and one small asian girl holding signs along the highway trying to flag cars down to give us a ride. As always, it was an embarrassing affair. People in cars passing by turned to look at us, smile or flat-out laugh without stopping to give us a ride. Finally, we decided to give up and go back to the train station to get on the connecting train.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
I was really glad our hitch hiking efforts were futile coz the train we took from Hitoyoshi to Yoshimatsu was really funky. It was called the Isaburou/Shinpei line which is an old model type train with no seats inside. The interior was done in a retro style and everyone sat on the floors. It was really cool and I enjoyed that train ride the most.
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| From The Silken Backpack |
It was almost dark when we got to Yoshimatsu and we had to change trains two more times to get to Kagoshimachuo. By the time we got there it was almost 9 in the evening and we took the last train of the day to Yamakawa station which was just one station away from the camping grounds of Kaimon Sanroku Fureai Kouen. We had to end our journey in Yamakawa however because the trains stopped running at that time. We checked our train map and were surprised to find out we were at the southern most train station in Japan!
It was insane! At that moment, we were literally at the bottom end of Kyushu! It has since then become one of my claims to fame; I have been to the last southern train station in Japan! Really, how many people can say that?
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