Kyushu, the 3rd largest island in the southwestern part of Japan was our next destination. We met Yoshi and Akiko at the train station that morning, and we all rode the shinkansen to the city of Kokura. It took several train changes and about 6 hours to get to Kokura. Yoshi has a friend who is president of a wonderful establishment called Hotel New Tagawa, and we stayed there for 2 nights. The hotel is housed around buildings over 120 years old and has an old world European feel. In the back of the hotel there are beautiful gardens and a pond filled with huge koi fish with a clear platform over the pond which is often used for wedding ceremonies, but is beautiful on its own. It is close the train station, shopping mall, and restaurants, making it a delightful place to stay!

Down the street from the hotel was a fish market and mall. It was really neat to see all the different kinds of fresh seafood and fish for sale. It was the first time I ever saw whale meat. There was even whale bacon! The market also had many fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers for sale that you could buy for a whole week’s worth of meals and not eat the same thing twice.

In the next building across the street, there was a mall with all kinds of clothes, shoes, and household goods for sale. I found a really cute pair of rain boots for 1500 yen (think $15.00). June is the rainy season, so it’s a good idea to have an umbrella and rain boots handy!

Our first evening in Kokura we enjoyed a wonderful meal on the bay provided by Yoshi’s friend. The restaurant was “all you could eat”, sort of like a buffet, but you order from a menu and have a 90 minute cutoff. The four of us ordered various types of seafood, sushi, meats and other dishes. The food was served in small portions and was perfect for tasting a lot of different types of food. I am not usually a big sushi fan, but the fish was extremely fresh and delicious! I even managed to eat everything fairly well with chopsticks. There was a salad bar and an awesome dessert bar, which were both a free-for-all. It is hard not to gain weight on this trip!

Following dinner, we were chauffeured around town and shown a hotel where Einstein had stayed, and an older part of the town that has been refurbished. There are many lovely restaurants, old buildings and shops right by the ocean bay. Unfortunately it started to rain and was quite dark by that point in the day, so our tour was cut short.

We tried to drive around the Kokura Castle, but it wasn’t lit up enough to see very much. The castle was built in 1602, but was burnt down in a local war in 1666. The castle was not reconstructed until 1959 and finally completely restored in 1990. Unfortunately we did not get to tour the castle while in Kokura, only seeing it from a distance.

We were all quite exhausted after a long day of travel, so we all gladly went to our rooms for a good night’s sleep. We were grateful for our luxurious beds! The next day was going to be quite busy.

Friday morning we met for breakfast at 8 a.m. The hotel has an awesome breakfast. You can choose Japanese style or American style. Caitlyn and Akiko chose Japanese style which included rice and fish. Yoshi and I ate American style which included eggs, various breakfast meats, fruit and fantastic bread. All the food was delicious. We seem to enjoy one feast after the other during this trip. It’s a good thing we do a lot of walking every day!!

Our first destination after breakfast was Tagawa City, home of the song and dance Tanko Bushi. Tagawa is a coal mining area and has a lot of rich history about mining. We took a mountain train to Tagawa. It is not a touristy area and Yoshi and Akiko had not been there before, so it was a first for all of us. Thanks to Yoshi’s help, we immediately found the park that had a stone with the title carved “Tanko Bushi” on it. There was another stone with the lyrics to the song carved in it. As we walked up the hill from the train station to the park, we saw the 2 brick chimneys that had once billowed black smoke in the sky from the Miike Mine which is no longer in existence. These chimney’s are mentioned in the song “Tanko Bushi”, and that part of the lyrics are as follows:

“The moon has come out, oh the moon is out (heave ho)
Oh the moon has come out over Miike Mine
The chimney is so high,
I wonder if the moon chokes on the smoke,
Heave ho!

We toured the area which had reproductions of miners homes, the train which hauled the coal, equipment used in mining and several other exhibits about life as a coal miner. Unfortunately the main museum was closed so we didn’t get to tour it. Coal mining is a very familiar subject to me since my mother-in-law, Ellie Muncy grew up in a coal mining camp in West Virginia. She has told us a lot of stories about how hard life was in in the mines. Many died from “black lung”, which I am sure was the case in Japan is well.

I went in the gift shop to buy several books and souvenirs about Tagawa and coal mining. I bought a wonderful book of paintings done by a local coal miner, Sakubei Yamamoto. The book describes the life of a Chichuko coal miners. It was a hard life, and the whole family often went into the mines to work.

The 3 ladies working in the shop were so kind. They offered us tea and candy. I managed to talk them and Akiko into doing the “Tanko Bushi” dance while Caitlyn filmed it. They were all very nice ladies, and I appreciate their willingness to dance for us. We took lots of pictures together and one lady wanted her picture with Caitlyn. They all loved Caitlyn’s samurai sword umbrella. That has been a conversation starter everywhere we go! Yoshi mentioned that most Japanese people know Tanko Bushi. We were all humming the song as we left the park!

We took a taxi to the train station and took a one car mountain train to Iizuka City in Fukuoka Prefecture. A taxi then took us to the phenomenal home of Den-emon Ito, known as “the Coal king”. Den-emon’s first wife died, and he remarried a woman almost 25 years his junior – the Emperor’s cousin Dyakuren Yanagihara. She was a poet and her husband helped her launch her career. Her pen name was White Lotus. The home has 11,000 square feet and was remodeled several times for his 2nd wife including a 2nd floor room that only she could enter. There is a huge main gate, 4 living areas and 3 warehouses on the 2 acre lot. There is a beautiful garden, pond, and bridge in the back of the home. Luxurious details are found all over the home – gold, silver, intricate artwork and even a flush toilet which was almost unheard of in the early 1900’s. It is truly a remarkable home!

When we finished touring the “Coal King’s” home, we took a train back down the mountain to Fukuoka, home of The Hakata Gion Yamakasa Festival. Fukuoka was hosting “The 99th Lions Club world convention. There were thousands of Lions Club members in the city! It was a bustling place! Since the convention was in town, the city brought out all of the the floats a few weeks early before the big race. Each year in July, the seven boroughs of the Hataka district of Fukuoka City make floats and teams of 30 or so men, who are local businessmen, carry and push the floats to the finish line. This is a 760 year tradition and is a rite of the Kushida Shrine. The roots trace back to a Buddhist monk named Shoichi Kokushi in 1241, however; it did not become a race until around 1687. There was some problems between 2 of the boroughs due the marriage of a young woman into a different nagare. This caused some fierce competition and that is the origin of the “oiyama” – floats passing each other.

While touring the city and looking at the various floats, we walked down to the canal. There were lots of street vendors selling various food and drink. It seems like we are always eating something, so we sat down at one of the vendors booths, and Yoshi ordered dinner for us. We had grilled meat, ramen and many other tasty treats. The food was delicious and it was fun to watch the vendors prepare the food.

After eating, we toured the city and floats before having dessert at a coffee shop. Yoshi helped us book our hotel for Hiroshima and figure out what train to take to Hiroshima. We are very grateful to Yoshi and Akiko for their assistance with this trip.

We took a train back to Kokura and all happily went to bed. The next morning Yoshi and Akiko left early to start back to Tokyo. We went to the train station to see them off and Yoshi helped us reserve our tickets for Hiroshima. Caitlyn and I enjoyed the late check out at the hotel, and did some filming in the room with Merlock for the episodes about Japan we’ll be putting up in the coming months.

After checking out of our room, we left our bags at the hotel, and did some shopping at the local mall. After a brief shopping spree, we took a taxi to the train station to start the next part of our journey – Hiroshima!