The way back to Kumamoto definitely went smoother. Got on the right train and arrived on time. 

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Since it wasn’t time for check in yet I decided to do some click clacking. Jo had told me that accommodations would be booked out fairly quickly for the Melbourne GP. So I finalized the flight from Christchurch and booked myself a hostel.

Btw a VPN really helps when trying to get the best price.

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Day 1:

On my day back kuya had prepared another great itinerary! 🤗

I did some more click clacking in the morning and then met up with him around mid day. 

Our destination for the day was the Suizenji jojuen garden. 

Wow wow wow! The Japanese really know their stuff. It was like a living piece of art!

Paraphrased by tita Laura: The rocks are all in random places and yet it still makes sense!

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After walking through the garden, enjoying the scenery and getting attacked by pigeons we decided to visit the tea house. 

There, a matcha tea paired with a sweet awaited us. It was really fun chatting and catching up with kuya. He had a lot of funny pictures to share from the times when me and my Robin were still little twerps. 

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As we were starting to get hungry, kuya showed me one of his favourite places: Sushiro. It used to be a sushi merry go round. But because of some spoiled brats they had to slightly alter the concept unfortunately.

Nevertheless it was still an enjoyable experience (the price might have helped). I never thought I’d say this, but the Mozzarella-Pesto-Salmon-Sashimi was fuckin delicious! I’ll definitely have to get some more before I leave Japan.

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Day 2:

I had spotted this store when I was in Osaka. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go at that time. 

So I figured I might as well use my free morning to create my own perfume at the Kumamoto branch. 

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I grabbed myself some breakfast and made my way to the store along the Shirakawa river.

Having arrived a bit early I decided to go to the park around the corner. 

There I was approached by two latter day saints missionaries. We did a bit of small talk and talked about my experiences in Japan so far. Turns out one of them was pinay (I had figured as much :))

They invited me to join them for lunch. I figured why not. If anything it’d be an interesting story to tell

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The perfume making process was supposed to be streamlined. You were supposed to pick between 2-3 scents. But I couldn’t decide on the ones I wanted to use. I think I ended up smelling each one at least 3 times. But yeah. In the end I eventually got it. I named it RAVErence

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We met up in Sakura Machi which was a new fancy mall in Kumamoto. At the food court I decided to go for some Korean food which was really tasty. 

It was really interesting getting to know Sister Peatross, Sister Maroket, Sister Smith and Sister Robbins.

All of them were lovely people and they had a great world view. They didn’t shy away from answering my challenging questions either. It was really interesting to hear about their daily lives and learn about the beliefs of the latter day saints.

Thank you for inviting me to lunch and the great conversation! 🙂

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After lunch I met up with Kuya where we explored downtown Kumamoto. We went to an action figure, anime store and checked out an arcade which seemed to be full of photo booths.

As we were getting kinda hungry we went to Saizeriya. It’s a great affordable Italian restaurant chain here in Japan. Can only recommend!

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As it so happened they had a light festival at Kumamoto castle. It was a show with interactive lighting and great music (edm). We were even able to walk around with our own lanterns, albeit powered by LED. A beautiful ending to my way too short of a stint in Kumamoto. I’ll definitely be back when I come to Japan again!

Day 3:

Off to Hiroshima!

My first Shinkansen experience went really smoothly. I even managed to get on the correct train! The seats were really comfortable and the leg space unmatched, all while almost  travelling at the speed of light.