Planet of the monkeys

I have more than once expressed a developed anxiety regarding travel in Japan. Everything runs to the second (usually!!) and does not wait for anyone! So, feeling rough and a little hung over, we wake up early to catch the tram, and then the train. Unfortunately we failed to realise that it was the start of a long 3-day weekend in Japan, which means that transport gets very busy. Luckily though, not only are we more sufficient in the ways of speaking Japanese, but we are more sufficient in ways to get those Japanese folks out of our way and get a seat...most of the time!


Our expert operation goes something like that (waiting in the long queue for the train doors to open...)


Me: Right, Bex, I'll handle all the big luggage and find a place to store it, you grab the first two seats you can find.


Rebecca: Ah, but the queue is massive! I'll try and push in front of a few people.


Me: Spare nobody. Ready? GO!


I would say for most of the journey we got some seats while other poor chaps we made to stand up in the aisles. It was very packed...half of India seemed to join us for the journey half-way too....



In Kyushu, the Shinkansen is still being built - often the quickest way to get from A to B is to go straight, unfortunately Japan has lots and lots of mountains in the way, so building something like the Shinkansen costs a LOT of money (probably why Shinkansen tickets are so expensive to pay for it all) and takes a lot of time. SO we hopped on to the three years old, not-quite completed (only half way or so) Kyushu Shinkansen called 'Tsubame' which means 'Swallow' (the bird!) in English. That was a nice train, furnished like your mum would furnish out her best room (although maybe she wouldn't use a albeit fancy, very durable kind of linoleum on her floor in that room...)



Finally after a four hour train journey we had little time to spare before we could catch the ferry over to Yakushima. All in all the journey was about 6-7 hours. Needless to say we were a little exhausted. When we arrived we decided to rent a car. At the reception desk of the building we were helped by two fantastic little ladies who totally surpassed normal knowledge levels of foreigner-stereotypes. When they discovered we could speak some Japanese, every reference to us (to anyone - to people waiting next in line, to the rent-a-car man on the phone) was 'these foreigners who can speak amazing Japanese'.

Our awesome island cruiser!
Finally with our lovely little LITTLE car, we were ready to cruise around the island and get to our hostel on the south of the island. We were exhausted. But, lucky for us, we had the energy after something to eat to visit the 'Kaichu onsen' which means 'Hot bath in the sea'. A series of rock pools, RIGHT by the sea contain naturally heated water which only during low tide can you enter. It was amazing. On the first night, there were no clouds in the sky, so there we were - out in the open, in a rock pool of really warm water, hearing the waves lap all around us, staring up at the sky of amazing bright stars. It was a fantastic experience. And because it was a mixed onsen, it wasn't as popular as it could have potentially been.

Yakushima is famous for being Japan's first world heritage site, and for Cedar trees that are thousands of years old. It's an island with beautiful lush thick forested mountains, small quiet villages and lots of monkeys and deer. We hiked, saw beautiful massive waterfalls, went to the beach and went to lots of 'onsen' hot baths. It was a really relaxing time.

I love how Japanese this photo is! Taken by a Japanese person, us in a Japanese photograph pose, and a very well layed out arrangement of elements in shot!

Getting in a beachy/surfing mood.

We also wanted to swim. The weather wasn't very warm, but we were determined to swim. Needless to say, when we went to the beach one day, we were the only people swimming in the sea, and we didn't stay in too long. In fact, it seemed other people who had come to walk on the beach or admire the beach were being entertained by the crazy foreigners who decided to enter the water. But it was still great fun, and the beach was beautiful.

The oldest tree on the island is estimated to be some 5000-7000 years old and called 'Jomon Sugi'. However, the hike takes about 10 hours to do, and we didn't have the time for it, nor the motivation. The oldest tree that was saw was about 3000 years old, which we thought was good enough! The island was so tranquil and working around the forests, all you saw was beautiful greens, browns and blues, and all you heard was bird calls, rushing water and the wind. Whilst we drove, there really weren't so many cars, and on the roads we often encountered 'Yakusaru' - the monkeys that live on the island. 9 times out of 10 they just seem to sit at the side of the road and groom one another, whilst curiously staring at the cars as they drive back. Occaisionally we'd stop to try and take a good look at them, or take some photos. It seems the 1 out of 10th time, sometimes the monkeys get a little bit annoyed for some reason or other. So when we slowed down to look at a lone monkey (he was alone, and he looked a little grumpy now we reflect back) - all of a sudden he charged so quickly at the car causing Rebecca to scream in shock, and me to put the pedal down on our lawnmower-engine type car. We survived the attack, laughing so hard at how shocked and panicked we were, once we had escaped the near-fatal monkey attack. Other than that, it was great to see all these monkeys and deer roaming about the place.

This was a typical scene on the island - piles and piles of trees, and random monkeys and deers roaming about the place thinking they own it!

Most of the monkeys were cute, and excellent photograph material. Unfortunately our angry-monkey friend wasn't keen on the idea of a photo-shoot... but here is a rough idea of what the monkey looked like!! (monkey to scale in drawing...)


Having had a good few days on the island, it was time to go back to the Kyushu mainland. On the same day we were planning to fly back to Tokyo, we very carefully scheduled a cheeky trip to a place called Ibusuki to try out a sand bath - whereby, on the beach, you are completely covered (all except your head) in warm-to-hot volcanic sand, and there you stay sweatin' it out for about 10 minutes or so. Another good Japan experience to add to my book! You feel pretty refreshed and liberated once you escape from that sand coffin, and we were ready to get out of Kyushu and closer to home!

We had done SO WELL to fit everything into our tight schedule. 99.9% of the time you can totally rely on Japanese efficiency, but to add a damper to our holiday, our flight was delayed by TWO HOURS. Our holiday didn't quite stop once we got the plane back to Tokyo - we had planned to see American artist Beck play in Tokyo in the evening of the same day we flew back to Tokyo - so the delay meant that we missed about half of the concert! Gutted!

Oh well, you win some and you lose some - overall this Kyushu holiday was a big success! Kyushu rocks!