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I made it to Japan...
...just!
I decided to leave Seoul in South Korea and head to Japan on 4 January. I took an overnight train to the port at Busan. I then caught a ferry to Fukuoka in Japan the next morning. All went smoothly until Japanese customs decided I looked sufficiently dodgy to warrant further questioning. After an hour of questions and searching through my bags (thankfully no physical searching!) I was allowed into Japan. I think all of the stamps in the passport put them off. Surprisingly (and annoyingly) my brown travel mate got in no probs! Weird huh?!
Anyway, Japan is really great. No-one speaks English and nothing is written in English - it`s pretty much like Lost in Translation. Makes even the simplest task more interesting! I stayed in Hakata for a few nights and also visited Nagasaki. Nagasaki was a very intense and sad place. I visited the peace parks, memorials and nuclear bomb museum. Wasn`t exactly fun but was very interesting and put a lot of things into perspective. Out of a population of 250,000, 75,000 were killed and another 75,000 injured. The museum had some shocking photos of the aftermath. So many people just burned to death. Many died because they could not get water even though they survived the initial blast.
I`ve also seen some cool Buddhist shrines and temples in Hakata. The story goes that one was built because someone caught a mermaid. They thought that this was a signal that Japan would be eternally great and so they built a temple. Really weird!
I`m currently in a place called Beppu on the island of Kyushu. Kysushu is basically 100% volcanic so they have loads of natural hot springs and geysers. The hostel I`m at has it`s own natural spring - very relaxing! I plan to visit some volcanoes in the next few days. One of them is one of the most active in the world and also one of the biggest craters.
Gonna hopefully see a sumo tournament in Tokyo in the next week or two. Will let you know if they:re as big as people say,
Hope all`s good,
Ian xxx
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