For the last 2 weeks, we went to Kyushu as a family trip. We visited Kitakyushu, Nagasaki, and Fukuoka. And this was definitely one of the most special trips I've ever been to.
Our first destination was Kitakyushu City, which was a newly formed city in 1963, which included Kokura and Moji, where we visited.
After landing in Fukuoka airport, we headed to Kokura to visit our first museum, the TOTO Museum. We were able to learn the history of TOTO. They started making pottery, and eventually turned into the largest toilet manufacturer in the world.
When walking back to our hotel, we stumbled upon a local supermarket and decided to check it out. We found everything super affordable there. So for the rest of the trip, we bought breakfast and snacks from supermarkets instead of convenience stores.
At night, we ate dinner at Saizeriya, which was a super cost-efficient and delicious Italian restaturant. Everything was pretty delicious. My favorite dishes were the corn soup and the vegetables.
On day 2, we visited Ganryu Island and Shimonoseki via boats. Ganryu Island was where Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro's legendary duel took place. In Pokemon, Team Rocket's Jessie and James were named after the 2 swordsmen. On the island, there are manholes of Koffing and Ekans, which represent Jessie and James. That was where we started playing Pokemon Go again.
Then we went to the other side of the Kanmon Strait, to Shimonoseki. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed here to end the First Sino-Japanese War. The decisive Battle of Dan-no-ura was also fought here, which started the Kamakura Period in Japan.
On day 3, we decided to explore Kokura by going to the Kokura Castle and the Zenrin museum nearby, which showed how cartography in Japan evolved. Kokura was where Ino Tadataka started surveying Kyushu, so the museum had a detailed explanation of the whole process. Ino Tadataka was a legend. He managed to draw a super detailed map of Japan over 200 years ago.
Day 4 was super chill, we planned to go to the Kitakyushu City Museum of Peace but it was closed that day, so we just walked around the area and returned early. From a local supermarket, we also bought wagyu and cooked at the hotel. It was super delicious.
During World War 2, the Kitakyushu was bombed heavily by American bombers. Kokura was even the planned target of the second atomic bomb drop because of its huge arms factory. On the old site of the factory, the Kitakyushu City Museum of Peace was built, and we visited it on day 5. We learned the brutality of war and the importance of peace.
In the afternoon of day 5, we went to sing at a Karaoke place. Karaoke in Japan is really rich in songs. Not only do they have Japanese songs, but there were also a lot of K-pop songs and even old Mandarin songs. We had a really good time there.
Our second city to visit was Nagasaki. You might expect a direct Shinkansen line from Kokura to Nagasaki, but due to political and economic concerns, Nagasaki's Shinkansen is disconnected from the main Kyushu Shinkansen line, so we had to transfer via a relay train.
Nagasaki is known for being where the second and last nuclear bomb exploded in wartime. So in day 6, we went to the Atomic Bomb Museum. The whole city was razed and hundreds of thousands of people died from the bomb. Hopefully, Nagasaki will remain the last city to be hit by a nuclear bomb.
After visiting the museum, we walked to the hypocenter monument and the peace statue nearby. There were a lot of statues donated by other countries to symbolize peace. Surprisingly, most statues were from countries in the Warsaw Pact, such as Poland, East Germany, and Bulgaria.
At night, we looked at the night view of Nagasaki from Mount Inasa. It's great to see how the city was rebuilt and continued to developed.
On day 7, we went to the museum and monument of 26 martyrs. About 400 years ago, 26 catholics were executed in Nagasaki by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The museum showed how christianity developed in Japan over the centuries and how they were oppressed.
Our next stop was a museum for human rights and peace, opened by a local. It showed all of the war crimes the Japanese Army has committed throughout Asia.
In the afternoon, we went to Namco near the station and played Taiko no Tatsujin. For the rest of the trip, we would often go to department stores to play Taiko no Tatsujin. At night, we tried cooking the wagyu again because it was super delicious.
Day 8 was our final day in Nagasaki, we went to the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture. Nagasaki was where trade and contact with foreigners occured for centuries. It influenced a lot of revolutionaries and ended the shogunate.
Day 9 was our first day in Fukuoka, and we chose to start from Ohori Park and Fukuoka Castle Ruins. The scenery was great in Ohori Park and we walked around the park. Fukuoka Castle Ruins was a great place to look at Fukuoka City.
Day 10 was also pretty relaxing since it was raining. We headed for Tenjin and visited department stores, but we returned early and called it a day.
On day 11, we went to the Fukuoka City Museum. There was a special exhebition, treating our day to day objects as ancient fossils. From the 41st century, things from the 21st century were dug out and investigated. There were even plastic figures of Italian Brainrot animals like Tralalero Tralala, which is an AI-generated 3-legged shark. Maybe people in the future will believe a 3-legged shark actually existed.
Our next destination was Fukuoka Tower. We had a great 360 degrees view 123 meters off the ground. For dinner, we ate at Ichiran Ramen, which actually originated in Fukuoka as well.
We chose to go to EZO Fukuoka on day 12, which was a building next to the Fukuoka Dome. We first went to Teamlab Forest which was a room with with digital animals on the floor and the walls. We even drew customized animals which was interesting.
On the 4th floor of EZO Fukuoka was the museum of Oh Sadaharu, a legendary baseball player who still holds the career home run record today. I knew nothing about him, but after visiting the museum, I really understood how legendary he was. There was also a pretty big area next to the museum with a lot of baseball-related minigames and we spent a long time exercising there.
We planned to go to Dazaifu city on day 13 but since we were all pretty tired, we decided to fully rest and then go to Karaokekan to sing again. Day 14 marked the end of the trip, our only destination was the airport and went back to Taiwan.
Overall, I really enjoyed the trip. We learned the history of Kyushu and its cities from the various museums. The supermarket strategy also saved us a lot of money and we even managed to eat wagyu twice. Karaoke was also a really fun activity for all of us to relax.
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