Flower Trip in Japan- [Oita: Part 1, 2] + [Fukuoka: Part 1, 2 , 3 , 4 , 5] + Tokyo [ 1] + Summary Post (to-do/ how plan / expenses)
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Hello Sweeties💕 Konnichiwa~ Welcome back to my blog! I probably spent a lot of my time on editing these photo but I guess it's definitely worth the wait. Continue from my previous post- YUFUIN, OITA (1) This is the second day in Oita. A dreamy and wonderful afternoon spent in the town. Last year I saw a photo of this Yufuin Floral Village on the instagram and I swear to myself, I must make this happen. So yes, I'm here!
Continue from my previous post, our stay was really cozy and I don't feel like waking up myself on the second day. But still, my inner self was talking to me asking me better wakeup early before the weather start raining lol. So I immediately jump out from my bed and run to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I saw my friend Gina was preparing the breakfast and she's always so good at flatlay. I guess the breakfast can have a really nice set up later on hehe!
I have a really nice sleep on yesterday as the previous night we really can't sleep during our transit and waiting period in the airport. Remember our private hot spring in our homestay? I guess that's the best way to treat ourself and refresh our body & mind too. Next I tried my best to dress up myself in 5 mins & do my makeup in 15 mins 😂 Then, run to the best breakfast spot in our homestay place.
OMG, I swear this is the best....breakfast I ever had in my life. Look at the scenery and our breakfast setting. All thanks to Gina while all of us just do our best by looking at the breakfast setting and give compliment on the perfect weather and view at our homestay. Btw, that morning was freaking cold. It's like 12 degree celsius only!
All our purchase from the market we visited yesterday. Super sweet strawberries cut into pieces, red bean bread, our favourite calbee, yogurt , milk and lots of flowers!
Enjoyable moment with them
The marble table is just too pretty. We decided to take our breakfast here because it's more chio than the white table inside our house. lol But actually it's better to eat inside because it's freaking cold here. HAHAHAHAH 為了美麗的照片 我們不惜一切 Now let's the photo do the talking!
After all, we checked out our amazing HomeAway stay and called taxi to fetch us to Yufuin Station so that we can put our luggage on the locker storage and continue to explore the rest of the place. Yes, my must visit spot at Yufuin Floral Village. For those who love to watch Totoro or similar anime from the same author who created Totoro, you must make this into your bucket list. It's really really pretty until I got no words can describe.
All taxi driver in Yufuin area wearing such beautiful and smart uniform with their own Yufuin logo. It's so cute and the driver is an old uncle but really nice & friendly. He helped us to carry and put on our luggage and slowly drive through the station.
Once we reached the station, we simply store our luggage at the coin locker for few hours before we left Yufuin and continue our journey to visit Fukuoka. The place which we decided to travel for flower and some very beautiful sightseeing place. I planned the itinerary to visit Yufuin Floral Village in the morning and the rest of the day we just take time to slowly explore the town and waiting our train to Fukuoka.
Spotted this cute little cab in front of the station. So it's some for a super chio OOTD photo!
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So happy that we were able to find this place. It's actually located near the Yunotsubo Kaido Yufuin street. The street where we explore on the first day but due to it's raining on the first day + it's quite late, a lot of shop already closed at the time when we arrived. So since it's still early on the second day, we decided to explore here first before it become really crowded.
It's just 20 mins walk (around 1km+) from the station but if you are not familiar with the location, you can actually take the taxi in front of the Yufuin Station and asked them to fetch you to this Floral Village. Since we are not familiar with the place, we decided to take taxi first so that at the end of our visit, we can walk back our own without taking any taxi too.
This place isn't as big as I thought but could really spend few hours here. If you come with children of kids even better because there are lot of activities suitable for the kids for example the rabbit area, owl's cafe or even cat's cafe too. Other than that the rest probably the small little souvenir shops. For people who love small shop or get those cute souvenir then make sure you come here. It look like a anime scene that we use to watch it when we are still a kid. Super adorable and the shop and whole area is quite easy to find.
Photo above actually include everything you can find it here. There are some food for you to grab too. So no worries if your stomach is hungry!
OMG! SO CUTE!!
The Rabbit
Shopping Area where the shop front representing many Japanese cartoon, such as Kiki, Totoro from studio Ghibli and so on. Enjoy taking photo and shopping with cute stuff. I saw a lot of review telling it's really crowded especially in the afternoon and I'm so lucky that we came early (but not too early tho) & it's totally not crowded at all.
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This place look exactly like this photo or I can say even better and more real if you able to come here and witness it by yourself. I feel like walking into the Japanese anime movie and everything was so unreal.
I really think this is the right timing for us to come here. All photo taken without any further edit, no photobomb and I felt so lucky to be here. Really really so happy for this. Here's a little #ChanwonTips for you, we were around 9.20am. So if you wish to come here without any crowd then just come earlier, I guess around 9.30am before 10.30am would be a really good timing. Although I'm really tired waking up myself in such hour but looking at these photo just simply worth for my effort.
I hope everything remain the same until I come back here for the second time and I just wish it remains the same til forever. Sometime I really wish that everyone who come to these place, able to experience the same like me because some place get really bad after it's full of tourist. If you wish to take any photo, ask for the shop owner whether you can take photo for that or else please take care of it, don't spoil anything ya.
I saw a lot of tourist who simply throw rubbish nearby or even talk really loud pointing here and there, touching here & there and taking it out of the place just to take photo. So remember always be nice and ask for the permission if you want take any photo.
Even the lamp look super chio and vintage too!
Is this even a real place?
I wish I could stay here longer!
Yunotsubo Kaido Yufuin, Oita
Right after we done our visit to the Yufuin Floral Village, we spot this beautiful shop selling beautiful umbrella at the shopping street. It's so nice and I saw lot of local people using these umbrella, I guess they should have got it from here.
Snoopy Tea House @ Yufuin, Oita
So next, it's our morning tea time! lol So fast after our breakfast lol. Remember the snoopy tea house I mentioned on my previous post, since it's closed on the first day we decided to pay a visit here again on the second day. There are 2 diff branch here (if not mistake), and this one located nearby / outside few mins walk from the floral village. There are few branches in Japan and we are here at the Snoopy Tea House located at Yufuin, Oita.
Limzy & Gina also looking forward to try the dessert here.
Apparently it's a snoopy tea house, there is a huge snoopy placed at the entrance of this place. Unlike normal cafe interior design, this is more of a vintage or I can say very 'Kyoto feeling' of cafe house. There are lot of little snoopy around the corner but we can't take it away and place it on our table for photo purpose, so for now we just can hug this huge snoopy & take photo with it lol.
There will be a min order for each pax, so make sure each of you order one dessert or drink here. It's not cheap for sure. One dessert cost around at least 1000 yen. So you might ended up spending RM40 for each dessert just for one pax. We actually planned to just order two dessert but with the min order, we ended up need to order at least 4 desserts. So yes, we got no choice to get 4 dessert lol.
It's cute and really special but since I'm not a hardcore fan of snoopy, it's just okay for me but the dessert was really not bad. Taste quite okay for all of us and I love the red bean. Really sweet and nice for me! If you are not a fan of snoopy, then maybe spend the money in other place because if you coming here with a group of your fan which is not a snoopy fan here then they might get really disappointed because they need to spend so much on just the dessert. It's better asking you guys go to try the giant Takoyaki that I mentioned on my previous post lol. So please take note on the min order ya.
Since it's still early in the morning, I thought we could continue to explore the remain part of the street and take some photo for my blog post!
Saw this chubby fat cat sitting across the road. So I just go there and talk with this cat. HAHAHAHAHAH I'm just joking, I can't communicate with him. He seems like really pissed off lol. Then suddenly, the sky turned really grey and start raining lol. So Limzy are the one who taking care of our umbrella hahahaha! Our pink umbrella 😛
We go back and bumped into the piano cake shop staff again, so we decided to take a photo with her before we left Oita.
No joke, it's freaking cold! All of us wearing the thickest jacket we had, I even borrowed mine for Limzy! AHAHAHAHH We thought it's end of Spring & Beginning of Summer so it's won't cold but...see now! We all just hug together like a lovely couples here 😂😂😂
As usual, just randomly walking around the Yufuin street.
Stomach is calling us! Is time for our lunch. Having our first lunch in Yufuin Village. On my hand it's the super yummy beef rice a.k.a 'gyūdon'.
Although it's already end of Sakura season, but there is this sakura soba available in the shop. OMG the soba quite chewy and a little taste of sweetness of this sakura soba. Since it's limited edition + tasty + my favourite color, I give this 10/10!
Flower Cafe @ Yufuin, Oita
Spotted this beautiful flower cafe in the town.
After all we decided to walk back to the Yufuin Station and book our train back to Fukuoka. There are 1 hour left until our ride to Fukuoka, we decided to walk around so that we could make use of our time here. Next, we decided to go to the toilet first and go the the building next to the main station. It's the Yufuin tourist information building. There is a super great view of the local vintage train and a very woody interior design of the building.
Yufuin Tourist Info Building
😭So pretty! If the coin locker fulled or you come here in a very late time you can actually drop your luggage here too. Price is the same or 100 yen cheaper or pricy than the coin locker. Depending on the size of your luggage. If you have small luggage it's cheaper but if you are having the large size one, then it's more pricy to store here ya. But not much diff actually, as long as there is a place for you to keep your luggage with ease, just pay! If not I can't imagine you pulling your luggage and walking around the street with it lol.
Even the wooden chair look nicer than my house one. Can I bring it back lol
View from the building and at the same time I just realise we spot the same luxury Yufuin-no-Mori train outside the window. Then I immediately run to my gang and tell them I MUST & HAVE TO TAKE PHOTO WITH THE HEAD OF THE TRAIN lol. So I run to the station and ask the permission from the people there and they agreed to let us go in first (before anyone there) so I could enjoy zero photo bomb photo like the one I took in Gifu during winter a year ago.
So I guess I should print these photo and make it into a postcard!
After waited for 1 hour plus, it's time to say Bye Bye to Oita and continue our flower dream's trip to Fukuoka. Added a new pet of Gina! AHAHAHAHA She bought it in Yufuin from the Totoro shop we went to during the first day of our trip.
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Finally our first step to our new prefecture. Bucket list checked again. It's time to check in to our second Homeaway stay in Fukuoka. Hakata Station is the main station in Fukuoka, it's similar to other city too, lots of shopping place and restaurant nearby here but one thing I realise as long as it's in Fukuoka or Kyushu region, every place we plan to it takes around or at least 1 hours + to arrive to that specific place. I guess it's because just Fukuoka itself it's already damn big and there are so many place for us to explore.
But since this trip is mainly for spring flowers, we decided focus only on flowers spot and try our best to stay as relax as possible. Just like in Oita I actually planned to visit to Lake Kinrin but due to the season and sudden rain + cold weather, I decided to cancel and just continue our journey to Fukuoka. As for Fukuoka, I actually included a visit to a beautiful red shrine too but I also decided to let go as the travel and transportation itself already took us 2 hours just to go to that shrine alone.
It's nice when you are travel with similar mindset's friend and they are alright to make decision with you. Before I come to this trip, as usual I just point and listed some must-visit place for all of us. Since it's not the first time I travel with my Yolo team, they already knew my style and I know they are the same type of travel buddy like me too. So as long as we visited our top highlighted spot, otherwise we can just simply pull off if we think it's unnecessary or we are too tired for that.
So every night, I will show them the photo on tomorrow's spot or to visit place and each of us just vote for the place and discuss what to wear or any theme to match on the next day. They are really the best travel buddy for me. They very cincai and each of us hold diff position during our trip together. I'm the 'Ministry of Finance' and the itinerary planner everytime, Yeezen is the photographer and chef, Limzy is the GPS and spot hunter + instagram or internet search while Gina is really good on flatlays , preparing breakfast and cafe & dessert hunter.
Sometime we take over each other's task but as long as we are together, we try our best to help each other and create travel memories together. I'm here to give thanks to all of them, who make my travel journey so unforgettable and fun! Suddenly feel like crying and just because it's hardly say from my mouth, I decided to express it on my blog lol. I guess it's my own way of expressing my love 💗 Thank you to didi , Limzy and Gina.
Now, we continue to figure out our next homestay again so we could simply check in and go to Sukiya to enjoy our dinner.
Successfully found our HomeAway apartment's key. As usual once you arrived to the place you need to contact the owner and most of the owner will send you a check in / check out guide for you. Normally it's on a pdf file and with that you can read the exact location and how to check in details for your apartment.
Here's the photo of me searching for the location of our stay. Actually it's just right behind us but I still can't figure out where's the entrance of our apartment. I can't spot any lift from the outside lol. So stress but few second later, with the help of my clever travel buddy, they successfully find the entrance lift beside the building! AHHAAHHAHAH
Benefit to travel with a group of friends. You are not alone lol
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Shout out loud when we arrived our homestay. It was really really cozy at the living room area. Actually there are more listing from HomeAway stay but due to the golden week + I booked it really last mins, most of the listing already rented by others, left some only and this is the best I could find for 4 pax stay. Otherwise it's mostly too big or too small. This is as usual, within our budget as I planned it and with the experience I have on HomeAway stay, I'm pretty sure to look for something with huge living area, dining area with TV, Washing Machine, Kitchen area and two rooms for us.
I travel to Japan quite frequent since two years ago. I stay in both hotel and homestay before and everytime I travel with a group of friends, to be honest it's more awesome to stay together under the same roof. What I mean is staying together in one apartment as you can discuss and enjoying your chit-chat time with your friends together. Unlike in hotel, you need to phone call, knock each other's door and asking them to squeeze in one room with you.
There are both pros and cons staying in Hotel and HomeStay but still, for making and creating a more wonderful experience where you can spend more time with your friends / family, it's more nice if you could stay in the same apartment and with the same or even cheaper spending on it, you get to enjoy bigger space and things that could be better than others. Most importantly, staying together in a whole apartment could enjoy your own private time with your friends and unlimited use of washing machine, of course, you can even cook.
Our last trip to Tokyo was so nice with HomeAway's listing, so this time I decided to stick back to HomeAway again as all of us prefer to stay together like our previous trip. If you usually stay in hotel, why not give this a try maybe it could change your travel experience with your friends and family too. Most importantly, I feel like a home whenever I'm staying with HomeAway. It's why I always recommended it to you guys. Remember to use my 8% discount code too.
So here's the first homestay in Fukuoka featured a big living area. Somehow I miss our first stay in Oita with the private onsen lol. But hardly could find a private onsen place like that again in Fukuoka because the Oita one is landed and it's countryside lol. Now, let me give you a little tour on our first Fukuoka homestay.
Our Fukuoka 1st Homestay: Click here
As usual our budget will be around RM150-200 per night. This homestay added with cleansing fees and 4 pax in total, it will be RM152 per night / pax. So it's quite reasonable and I don't think you can find something which is better than this. Everything was really good except the toilet is a bit unsatisfied. Also remember that you need to turn the toilet's dryer which is the exhaust fan ON in order to keep it nice and not too humid on the next day. So far I stayed in HomeAway Homestay for more than 10 diff apartment, each of it also very very nice and tidy. This one so far everything was perfect like the photo and very cozy except the toilet part.
I already comment and told the owner and hope they could ask a helper and come to clean the toilet. Remember you can always give feedback to the apartment's owner if you found anything can improve. Other than the toilet I got no problem with that. Maybe I'm too strict on the toilet part but my friends feel that it was still alright. HAHAAHA
In addition this place can fit up to 10 pax as there will be futon for you to sleep on the tatami if you have more pax. I guess this should be one of the highlight for this stay too.
Each room comes with one huge closet area on the side of the door and the second room above even got a desk for you to work on it. Limzy draw and paint her artwork here. At night we working together in the living area and discussing tomorrow's itinerary and plan.
So right after we checked in our homestay, (Yes it's already at night during the day we check in our first stay in Fukuoka) we decided to google out the nearest Sukiya and enjoy our dinner there. The neighbourhood nearby is very convenient. There are lot of 7-11, Family Mart or even market nearby too. So it's around 12 mins walk from the station to our homestay and there are lots of shopping place nearby too.
After our dinner we decided to spend sometime in the Fukuoka City area first before we go to the seaside and look for our flower spot. So the next post will be things we did in the Fukuoka City, probably the only shopping day we had through the whole Kyushu Trip! That's all for today's post and I hope you enjoy reading it. Remember to put share this to your friend if you really wish to visit this place and put it into your next visit bucket list too.
See you on my next post! Love, xoxo.
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