(vocalizing) - Yellow Productions Presents.
Eight things to know before you go to Kyushu in Japan.
I'm Chris, my traveling panda Topher,
it's too cold for him right now.
It's like -5 degrees Celsius today,
but we're out here braving the cold
to tell you everything you need to know if you're planning
a trip to Japan's most Southwesterly island, Kyushu.
(upbeat light techno music) Kyushu is a paradise
for nature, that's why I'm out here in Yufuin
at this (speaks in foreign language) town.
There's this bridge, it goes over the stream.
There's these trees, there's this mountain.
So this is what you come to Kyushu for.
Also the population of Kyushu,
13 million across the island.
Fukuoka, kind of the biggest city.
It can seem like a little Tokyo.
Kyushu literally means nine provinces,
but there's only seven left of them today
and it has an interesting location in that Kyushu
is closer to Korea and China than it actually is to Tokyo.
So you'll find lots of international visitors in Kyushu.
It's quite mountainous, as you know
as we are in the mountain region.
Mount Aso that's in the middle of Kyushu
is Japan's most active volcano,
and so that leads us into hot springs.
The second thing to know before you come to Kyushu
is about (speaks in foreign language), or hot springs.
Kyushu is often referred to in Japan
as the land of fire because it has the most
hot spring volcanic discharge of any region in Japan.
Right here, this is a discharge in Beppu,
it is the self-proclaimed capital of hot springs in Japan.
And the water that comes out of here
came from an explosion of a volcano 1200 years ago
and you can actually hear it boiling in the background
and the steam is truly impressive.
And so if you're coming to Kyushu,
make sure you check out the hot springs.
If you just wanna look at them, you can come to Beppu.
There's like seven of these different things
that you can look at but I'd suggest
you check out a hot spring hotel.
A couple of ones that we've stayed in
are in Kurokawa, Japan and in Yufuin.
They're more classic (speaks in foreign language) towns,
so maybe check out an (speaks in foreign language)
in one of those areas.
I guarantee you'll enjoy it.
If you wanna know more about how to
(speaks in foreign language), you can check out
a link in the description below,
or I've also got a video on my best
(speaks in foreign language) hotels
that I've stayed at in Japan and in Kyushu too.
The third thing to know if you're coming to Kyushu
is about getting to Kyushu, and if you're getting to Kyushu
chances are you'll be coming through Fukuoka.
Fukuoka's the main transport hub,
that's where most of the trains and planes come through.
If you are coming from further than Tokyo,
you should take a plane.
Fukuoka also, like flying, is really inconvenient
to get to a lot of the other airports.
So Fukuoka's a place where most people fly.
If you're coming from Osaka or closer,
take the bullet train into Fukuoka
and then you can take trains around.
If you are trying to come from Tokyo,
it takes five hours and 40 minutes by the bullet train.
That's a long time.
Your other option, you could take a ferry
from Korea, from Busan here to Kyushu.
The fourth thing to know before you come to Kyushu
is about transportation in Kyushu.
It may seem really small on the map,
but it's really quite big.
The Shinkansen goes quickly from north to south
but east to west can be pretty slow.
That's buses and limited trains.
If you go Hakata to Kagoshima Bay,
it's about an hour and a half north to south.
If you're gonna transfer here by rail,
think about the Kyushu Rail Pass.
It's like a JR Pass just for the Kyushu area.
Also if you're driving, which we really recommend,
that's what we did on our trip.
Check out the Kyushu Expressway Pass.
It's like the JR Pass, unlimited driving
on the Kyushu expressways for a certain amount of days.
Driving here is pretty easy.
It's nice, the roads are wide at least on the expressways.
In the cities, they can be kind of small.
And by the way if you're here in the winter
then you might want snow tires or even snow chains
if it's really snowy.
The Toyota rental car will actually rent
and you can reserve those through the rental car company.
The fifth thing to know about Kyushu is what time to go.
I think the best time to go to Kyushu is in March or April
which is cherry blossom time.
This is definitely not that time.
This is January, it can snow in Kyushu
so you should know that, particularly if you're coming
to the Mount Aso neighborhood or region.
It can get quite cold in Kyushu.
It is -5 degrees Celsius today,
so be prepared for cold weather if you're coming in winter.
Fall is a good time, but that'd be before typhoons.
Also there's a lot of festivals in Kyushu,
so come for the festivals.
We went to Kyushu's version of Burning Man.
That was pretty cool.
And I'm gonna show you this in my next section on food,
but I wanted to show it to you know 'cause I just got it
from this rest stop where I'm filming this.
And this is Aso milk, in Aso they're famous for their milk
and this is milk with 4.5% milk fat.
Milk sold in the U.S. typically has 3.5,
reduced fat has 2% and so if you come check out this milk.
By the way, it's so cute in this container
and it comes with a little straw you can poke in it
to mmm drink your milk.
The sixth thing to know before you come to Kyushu
is about the language.
Chris, what do you mean the language?
Don't they speak Japanese in Japan?
Well, yes and no.
The written language is the same
but the spoken language is different.
They have their own dialect in Kyushu
that is so incomprehensible to regular
Japanese dialect speakers that the Japanese government
actually used the Kyushu dialect as code in World War II
so the allies couldn't break their communications.
So if you studied Japanese in school
and you're listening to the locals speak,
you might not understand what they say.
But, I will say that they do speak regular Japanese here
so if you speak Japanese to them, they'll understand.
Also with the hotels and things like that,
people here speak a reasonable amount of English.
You will also hear a reasonable amount of Korean spoken
on the streets, a lot of Korean visitors.
The seventh thing to know before you come to Kyushu
is about what to buy in Kyushu.
And the thing that's kinda their specialty of the region
are porcelain products right here.
The store sells all porcelain products,
vases, dishes, you'll find a lot of them.
We brought back a couple of porcelain owls.
What else is there to buy here?
Well, there's a lot of international tourists
so there's a lot of department stores in Fukuoka
and the big cities more so than you might think
for a city of its size 'cause of all the international
Korean and Chinese visitors that come here.
Kumamon, Kumamon is like the logo from Kumamoto.
He's this bear but you could buy his souvenirs,
he is like everywhere throughout the region.
And finally, food.
Frankly most shops that say souvenirs on it,
what they sell in there is food and if you look
at what to buy in Kyushu, most guidebooks will just have
a list of 10 or 40 different food items.
And so that leads us into number eight is about the food,
and one of the things that's most famous here,
standing in front of this restaurant, it's beef.
This restaurant has a sign in front of it that says
the reason to eat here is the local beef and the chicken.
And you can see there's a cow and his name is Bungo Beef.
And I will say the beef here has been really good,
so when you come to Kyushu, check out the local beef.
They grade it A4, is the best,
super delicious, melts in your mouth.
Something you'll see a lot around here also is Hakata ramen.
Hakata ramen is a Tonkotsu soup, a white milky broth.
Pretty good with thin noodles.
Mentaiko is also really popular around here.
Mentaiko is a spiky cod roe.
You'll find a lot of gyoza restaurants.
Milk is super popular, I mentioned that earlier.
Strawberries in this region, super sweet, check those out.
Milk, I already talked about milk.
Castella cake from Nagasaki, it's a specialty from there
and I'm moving up here so I don't get run over by this car.
And finally, in Fukuoka it's like almost
the capital of food in this region.
It has 4.2 restaurants for every thousand people,
in fact Fukuoka's more dense on restaurants
than Singapore or New York
and so if you're in Fukuoka, there are 9,000-plus
restaurants so if you at one every day,
it would take you 25 years to eat through Fukuoka.
So if you're coming to Kyushu
and you wanna try to figure out how long to spend
and you wanna eat everything then it's not
one to three days, it is 25 years.
Alright, well thanks for watching.
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And Topher has to come out to say bye-bye.
(peaceful upbeat music)