Kyushu 2015 Autumn Self Drive Trip - Day 13

Day 13 : Yufuin to Shimonoseki

Today we will leave Yufuin and say goodbye to our last onsen for this trip. Plan is to drive to kitakyushu then to Shimonoseki. The plan is actually to try catch 2 different night view , one from Sarakurayama (血倉山) near Kokura (小倉) and the other is Hinoyama Park (火の山) in Shimonoseki(下關). But when doing my homework then realised that the cable car for Sakarurayama only operates till evening on weekdays , last car to come down is 6 pm , which means you can see the night view if you are taking public transport , although the day view is nice but it's the night view that is  what we are interested in, as it was voted as the "New" top 3 night views of Japan. The driving up will takes about 1 hour ( from navitime ) , google map put 5 mins …… , so we decided to skip it and focus on doing the one at Hinoyama , which also look nice with the bridge as view. Do note that the Illuminations of the bridge and the access to the park is around 9 pm to 10 pm only so do check again if you are planning to visit. ( In the end , we did not managed to view any night view cos it was raining that night !)

B-speak roll cake

nico soy doughnut

rice wrapped with pork slices

caramel pudding

Wake up in the morning and I thought that I can go out to buy bento for breakfast at the Yufuin station , cos I saw a blogger said the beef bento is very nice BUT to my disappointment , there is no bento sale at the JR station ! Also we tried looking for a famous bento from Cucu.chi , one of the shop along the main shopping street but seems that it was not selling the beef bento anymore. So we just bought some food and snacks and move on our way as it's gonna be another long drive today.
We detour to Yabakei Gorge (耶馬渓) 's Hitome Hakkei (一目八景) ,  it's actually a spot whereby you can see 8 different view of rock formations , can't seems to find the map online now , but at the visitors centre there , you can get a map and it will show you how to see the 8 different views. this is supposed to be a popular spot for koyo but we are a bit late in season but still managed to see some red leaves just that cos it was drizzling a bit then clears up do the weather is a bit gloomy.
When you drive past some of the shop , there are parking there but think they charges ( or maybe if you purchased from them it might be free ) but just drive further down to the Visitors Centre ( there are new toilets there that looks like just been built ) there are free parking there , it's about 5 - 10 mins walk from the lookout observation deck , you can walk along the roadside or from a mountain trail.
From there we make our way to Kokuro (小倉), via a tunnel called Ao no Domon (青の洞門) , it's said that it was hand dug by a monk long ago and took about 30 years to complete ?

Sunny bun

condense milk filling

melon pan

the cheapest bun think around 40 yen

It was raining quite heavily when we reach Uomachi 魚町銀天街 , It is basically a covered shopping street near Kokuro Station. We had wanted to reach early and have our meal at Daigaku 大學堂 in Tangaichiba (旦過市場) which is linked to Uomachi. While Uomachi is more for shopping , Tangaichiba is more for food and very special is Daigaku cos it will sell you a bowl of rice then you are free to walk along the covered street and buy food to put on top of your bowl of rice to create your own "Don" ( rice bowl ). But it's closed on the day when we were there ( ya right aloof of shop that we wanted to try was closed when we were there LOL). So we just stick to go some shopping in Uomachi , visited some drugstores and then visited one of the bakery which I wanted to try. Shiroya Bakery  is near the entrance of the shopping street if you are coming from Kokuro Station. This is a bread shop that sells cheap buns and one of the most famous one is their "sunny bread" it is a bun with condense milk inside , for ppl who like condense milk , it's heaven and the good news is that they just opened a outlet in Hakata recently so no need to travel to Kokuro for it. Think most of the bun are less then 100 yen with the cheapest is like 40 yen ?

Kaikyo Yume Tower

From there we said goodbye to Kyushu and drove over the straits to Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture. There are a few ways to get over there from Kyushu, for driving there is a tunnel and a bridge ( highway) , for walking there is a underpass ( free) or you can take a train ( thru under tunnel ).
It was still drizzling when we reach there so we skipped the night view that we had planned at Hinoyama park.
Note : The parking at this Toyoko Inn is first come, first serve. As when we reached , the parking is already full , we need to park about 5 min walk away from the hotel , the hotel staff will inform you of 2 different parking space nearby with different in pricing and will give you a map for it. Parking charges in Japan varies by company n places , it can be a carpark nearby but the rates might be a lot different , so always check carefully , If you can navigate ( or can guess ) Japanese , Navitime got a site which can let you check nearby carpark in advance.It can show you the charges also but I am not sure how updated it is but i find it not very user-friendly so i just check a few and give up.

For dinner we had at 笑笑 , it's about 5 min walk form the hotel and around here that are actually a few different Izakaya (居酒屋). You can refer here for it's menu. The food is actually quite good , esp the skewers. A funny incident here though due to our bad japanese : the staff actually direct us to the locker  when we reached , but we had not bags with use just jackets so we thought we prefer to bring with us so we just follow on to our seat. They try to talk to use in japanese but we do not understand then just smile ( if they use body languages , i would have understand what they meant LOL ) , after we seated , they bring us 2 keys , which we were puzzled. Only after we finished our meals and leaving then we realised , the keys are to the lockers and the lockers is to keep your shoes ! So paiseh ! means they have to help use take our smelly shoes to put into the lockers as we don't understand them in the first place.

Tomorrow we will be going back to Kyushu Again !