I woke up way too early at 2:30am and stayed in bed until 5:00am, I know I will regret this later in the day. Jives and I went downstairs and wrote in our books for a while before walking to the vending machine across the road for our first coffee of the day. Harith woke up just after 6:30am and we decided to pack up and head to the train station earlier in order to get reserved seats on the train from Kagoshima to Miyazaki. We walked to the metro for about 15 minutes and then took the train to Hakata station. 

We easily booked tickets at the self-serve machine with seats together. We then searched for food to eat on the train. I found a booth selling vegan bento boxes and got myself a bento with whole grain rice, seaweed, potato, daikon and two tempura fritters (one had mushrooms). Jives and I then went to a little restaurant for a toast and boiled egg set with a nice black coffee.

We then went to the platform, stopping to get the Fukuoka (Hakata) stamp in our notebooks. 

We waited on the platform for the 9:06 Sakura 541 to Kagoshima. On board I sat with a young Japanese business man and Jives and Harith sat together so that Harith could have the window seat. 

The train should have arrived at 10:30am but it didn’t because we stopped for about 17 minutes to investigate a weird sound that was emitting from the train. It’s super weird for trains in Japan to be late, and they kept making announcements to apologize for the inconvenience. 

The train arrived in Kagoshima closer to 11am, which was fine as our Limited Express train to Miyazaki left at 11:50am. We found the platform and found a spot to sit on the platform as we waited. Harith went back to the station to find the stamp which was just outside the pay gate at the ticket office. There was a cool black train at our platform, clearly a significant train as many people were stopping for photos with it.

I bought Jives a local sour beer from a local craft brewery guy for 800 Yen , which we tried at the hotel later. The Kirishima train to Miyazaki was a limited express, so it was slower. Jives and I had a seat right at the front of the carriage with Harith behind us at the window. The seat rocked back and forth a lot which made me unusually motion sick. We were able to see Sakurajima, an active volcano, from the train, which was lovely. 

We arrived in Miyazaki just after 2pm and were able to get a stamp at the station before walking to our accomodation 15 minutes away, “Dormy Inn Miyazaki”, our first Dormy Inn of the trip!! I love Dormy Inns as they are pretty accepting of small tattoos, plus they are just really great hotels. 

We waited 10 minutes and were able to check in a bit before 3pm. Our room was pretty nice, with three beds. We settled in for a while before heading out to find ourselves some dinner. We struck out at a few veggie places before finding a little business like booth restaurant where we were seated at a little booth with a sliding door and we ordered on a touch screen. 

We were able to find quite a few veggie dishes despite it being a meat obsessed establishment. We got some lovely cucumbers in sesame oil, eggplant, pumpkin tempura, egg tempura and tofu. Jives and I also ordered some seared salmon and a tuna cutlet. We ordered a few draft beers and chowed down on our little feast. The cucumbers were my favourite, as was the seared salmon. Harith and Jives each tried a local craft beer. The bill came to 8700 Yen (about 70$ Canadian) which wasn’t bad at all considering all the food we had! 

We then wandered around the shopping arcade, finding a lovely area with neon lights and lanterns. The neon lights would have me believe that the area was called “Taste of Brilliant” haaaa or more likely “Nishitachi”. We then retreated to our room via a Lawson store where we grabbed some snacks.