Home

Site map

Kyushu top 10

• Fukuoka
  I think this is my favourite city in all Japan. There's no great sense of history here (though it was an important port from 300BC), but Fukuoka has some great modern architecture, a brilliant nightlife and tremendous vitality.
  
  
• Nagasaki
  For history, it's best to head for Nagasaki. Surprisingly, there's a lot more to the city than its tragic association with the atomic bomb. For two hundred years Nagasaki was the only point of contact between Japan and the outside world. Today this translates into an attractively cosmopolitan city, with a legacy of Western architecture, Chinese temples and some unusual cuisine.
  
  
• Kurokawa Onsen
  Kyushu is a great place for onsen enthusiasts, and this higgledy-piggledy village is a real gem. It's buried in the plateau north of Aso-san - difficult but not impossible by public transport - and boasts 23 rotemburo (outdoor baths) in all shapes and sizes.
  
  
• Yakushima
  Off the southern tip of Kyushu, Yakushima is completely different from the rest of Japan. The mountainous island, covered with dripping, steamy rainforest, is famous for its thousand-year-old cedar trees (Yaku-sugi). It's always raining (average annual rainfall in the interior is 6m!), but worth getting a bit damp to see these mossy, tattered monsters; the oldest tree is a mind-boggling 5000 years old.
  
  
• Ebino-kogen
  I first visited Ebino-kogen in spring-time. Unfortunately, I was too early for the wild azaleas (which bloom May-June), but the view from the top of Karakuni-dake over a chain of volcanic craters was breathtaking. At this time of year you often get very heavy hoar frost at higher altitude, which coats the still-bare bushes with what looks like a thick layer of icing-sugar.
  
  
• Aso-san
  In the early 1990's Kyushu's volcanoes were unusually active. Several were completely off-limits, but it was still possible to visit Aso-san's Naka-dake crater. In fact, you could stand right on the crater rim and look down into its churning, smelly depths. Though it's calmed down a bit now, it's still pretty impressive.
  
  
• Takachiho
  Part of the fun of Takachiho is getting there. Approaching from the west you have a dramatic bus ride round the flanks of Aso-san, while coming up from the coast the train criss-crosses the Gokase gorge. Once there, Takachiho's main attraction is nightly performances of Yokagura by local townspeople. These folk dances depict Japan's ancient legends - some of which are believed to have taken place in this area - and contain some delightfully earthy humour.
  
  
• Beppu
  Many foreigner visitors find Beppu, one of Japan's most famous onsen resorts, too tacky for words. There are certainly some tacky parts (gaudy statues, a bizarre sex museum and one or two dreadful zoos), but it can also be tremendous fun. Apart from these bubbling, sulphurous mud-pools, there are one or two superb onsen, a nice collection of restaurants and bars, and some attractive places to stay.
  
  
• Sand baths
  I didn't really relish the idea of being buried up to my neck in hot sand and left to cook gently at 40-50C for ten minutes, but it's a surprisingly pleasant experience. Or, at least, it feels great when its over. You can take a sand bath in both Beppu and Ibusuki; I'd recommend either the beach at Ibusuki or the indoor baths at Beppu's Takegawara Onsen.
  
  
• Ferry through the Inland Sea
  One of the nicest ways of leaving Kyushu is to take a day-time ferry from Beppu through the Inland Sea to Kobe or Osaka.