Choo Choo All Aboard to Kumamoto

After our flight debacle we were quite apprehensive about getting ourselves to Kumamoto but all ran smoothly! Here is us loaded up like donkeys ready to trapse to the station:

Those big bags are SUPER heavy, we have a maximum carry period of 15 minutes before we collapse. Wearing our backpacks on the front also makes us feel like we've got a baby carrier, so we feel pretty weighted down by it all.

We got our first ride on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train)- not the fastest one though! As you might expect, the train arrived 45 minutes early and dropped us off bang on time at Kumamoto. It was pretty luxurious. We're going to email our pictures to Southern Rail to encourage them to step up their game!

It was quite simple for us finding our hostel on the other side. Mostly because an old lady who we asked for directions went out of her way to escort us to the front door.

We are in love with this hostel and want everyone to come and join us here. It is in the traditional Japanese style, with sliding paper doors and tatami mat floors to sleep on. There is a garden terrace on the roof where you can sit and look out at Kumamoto and see the castle. This hostel's facilities are tip top and there is even space to make tea on the roof!

This is our room:

Other images from the hostel:

We decided to put posh frocks on and check out Sun Road Shinshigai and the Shimotori Arcade (a long street arcade with shops and food outlets) to find a place for dinner. We were on the cusp of getting lost trying to find our way in the dark but luckily a Japanese man asked us if we needed help and walked out of his way to take us to the arcade.

The restaurant we decided on had no English on the menu so luckily we ended up with cheese on tofu rather than raw horse, which is a speciality in this part of Japan.

We also took the opportunity to try some Sake! It is extremely strong and we found it difficult to drink two small cups of it. Ashton started developing a Sake head roll every time she drank some. Check out the photos:

We had to buy ourselves some tea after that to sober ourselves up a bit. We discovered that it's quite common for tea to come ready powdered in sachets with powdered milk. It took us a little while to work out what the dickens was going on with our teabags but we got there in the end. We went and drank it up on the roof terrace and got talking to a couple of the hostel's other residents- one from America, one from Germany.

All in all, a pretty successful day!