Seeing Kyushu By Train

Above, waiting to board the train to Sasebo City at Kumamoto Station.  Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Probably the best trip to Japan I've made was the 2007 trip. On that one, I headed down to Kyushu to see Mount Aso (I didn't get to see very much of it as a blizzard was in progress at the time, but still worth the experience), Sasebo City and the nearby Saikai Bridge and Hario Wireless Towers, Nagasaki and Fukuoka. It was pretty much "the Rodan trip" as the places visited were featured in the 1956 movie, Rodan. But, to be fair, I also saw some locations featured in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) and Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla (1994).

All of these are spotlighted in The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan.

The U.K.'s Guardian has posted a nice travelogue article of a family's five-day rail journey in Kyushu. I have to agree, the scenery of Kyushu was great to see by train, especially along the Ariake Sea.

Here's a snippet from the article:

My wife Yuko, Roka and I were about to embark on a five-day rail journey around Kyushu, the third largest of the country's main islands, using the "limited express" trains – of which the Sonic was one – and the hi-tech, high-speed shinkansen (bullet train) system. The first thing that attracted us to the idea of travelling around Kyushu by rail was the ridiculously cheap passes only available to overseas visitors – a five-day pass for the island costs just over £100, nine times cheaper than a single day on the new, much-heralded Kyushu Seven Stars luxury train, which costs from £980 per person for a two-day/one-night train "cruise".

With the JR Rail Pass, the train rides in Kyushu was "ridiculously cheap."

To read the article, go here.