Leaving Okinawa
We didn’t have anything planned except that we needed to get the car back to the rental company at 2PM. With the morning to kill, we decided to visit a shopping centre. We were halfheartedly shopping since we knew there’d be opportunity to shop later on and didn’t want to carry stuff with us for the rest of the trip! Though at the top of the shopping center, we did score a pretty nice view of Naha.
Mos burger
So with shopping a bust, we decided to have eat. We had seen Mos Burgers throughout Japan and figured it’d be a good time to try one. Salmonella compared it to the Macdonalds of Japan. It wasn’t far off, it looked like a typical burger joint. They had these “rice burgers” where they replace the bun with rice! Given it’s not something you see everyday, I ordered one with a “seafood” patty in the middle. While it wasn’t knock your socks off amazing, it was still pretty good!
Flight to Miyazaki
Sadly our time was up in Okinawa and we headed to the airport on our way to the next leg of our adventure, Miyazaki. It was a fairly routine flight. I normally don’t opt for the window seat on planes (I like the “freedom” of the aisle) but on this flight I was. And I’m glad, I had the chance to catch some nice skyscapes enroute!
Takanabe Lantern Festival
Before our trip, our AirBNB host for Miyazaki messaged us that there was going to be a lantern festival happening in Takanabe. He planned to go the night we arrived. However we arrived a bit late and took a while to get our car rental sorted out. We decided to go on our own and not hold him up. Takanabe is about a 40 minute drive north of Miyazaki. Again, Google directions took us on an adventure. After some very remote farming lanes, and a longer than normal drive we arrived!
Lanterns!
Once we arrived, we were mesmerized! There are two “sections” to the festival. The lantern portion and the food/show portion. I spent a majority of my time in the lantern portion. Its simply a beautiful environment to be in. There are literally hundreds of lanterns in rows across the floor. There are larger lanterns scattered throughout and there are candles that line walkways and even what looks like a “tower” of candles going up the hill. To be honest, it’s hard to describe how “dream like” the lantern portion of the festival is. I fell in love with this place and probably could have spent hours here. I only hope some of my photos can do this place justice!
Food!
The other portion of the festival is a night market / performance space. We were getting hungry so as painful as it was, we pried ourselves away from the lanterns and headed down. This was another unique area that we really enjoyed. There were tons of food stalls with people selling all sorts of Japanese goodies. There was also a place for local talent to perform for the community. Without our AirBNB host, we likely would never have known this existed. It looked like a very local affair, and it was very cool just seeing the community come together and enjoy a good evening together!
It was getting late and we had an uncertain Google direction filled path home. So with the promise that we’d return the next night, we departed for our AirBNB excited for what the next day had in store.
Aoshima Shrine
We had a few things on our list today. The first was the Aoshima Shrine. This shrine is about 40 minutes south of Miyazaki. It’s located on its own island surrounded by some very interesting rock formations that seem to break the incoming waves. I don’t know too much about the history and function of the shrine itself, but we spent some time exploring the shrine/temple at the center of the Island. We also walked around the whole island. It’s not a big island so walking around should only take a half hour at most. The whole area is quite picturesque so we spent some time hanging out.
Udo Shrine
Our next stop was the Udo Shrine. What was really neat about this shrine was that it was built inside a cave (or rock outcropping). After walking along a coastal path through a series of gates, we finally arrived at this large rock formation carved out by crashing waves.
After a short flight of stairs down, we arrived at the shrine itself which is truly “inside the mountain”. Its things like this that make me wonder how people decide to build structures here. Not only is it a well put together shrine, it’s quite elaborate and must of taken a great deal of work and care to construct.
Nichinan Suisan Seafood Restaurant
After the Udo shrine, we were a little “shrined” out so we decided to stop for lunch. So we set back along the coastal highway (which is beautiful by the way) until we were about a half hour outside of Miyazaki and parked in a dirt lot along a narrow building that looked like it was cobbled together with pieces of wood. At first I was a bit skeptical, but after taking the time to look inside we realized it indeed served fresh seafood. In fact, there were multiple tanks inside the restaurant itself with all sorts of shellfish and other goodies. We had read that lobster was a treat in this region. Unfortunately the menu was a bit on the pricy side, so we all opted to grab a Lobster soup/stew and share a bowl of clams. I’m glad we did, the soup was incredibly rich and there was a lot of meat in the lobster that came with it. All in all, the food was very tasty albeit a bit expensive.
Heiwadai Park
Our next stop was Heiwadai Park. By the time we drove back to the city and into Heiwadai Park it was late afternoon. The park was a nice change of pace from the shrines we had seen in the morning. We spent a bit of time wandering the paths until we found this cool forest of statues. We had a bit of fun with them as we walked and simply enjoyed the peacefulness and beauty of the park.
Back to Lantern festival
As the sun started to set, we knew it was time to make our way back to Takanabe. We were all really excited to spend more time at the festival given how cool it was the night before. We weren’t disappointed. In fact it was busier and livelier then the previous night, likely due to it being a holiday the next day. So we got to see the festival in full force and enjoy more of the great vibe and atmosphere.We stayed for a few hours trying to take it all in.
Omarushinchaya Udon for dinner
Sadly because we wanted to try some Udon for dinner we needed to make it to a restaurant called Omarushinchaya before it closed. It was a short drive from the festival to the restaurant and soon enough we were seated with a yummy looking bowl of udon sitting in front of each of us. I opted for a prawn tempura udon and enjoyed it immensely!
It had been an incredibly full day and so by the time we got back to our place we were all ready to crash. Tomorrow we’d be leaving Miyazaki, on our way to Takachiho Gorge so we had a little bit of driving ahead of us.