We took the train from Kagoshima to Miyazaki. I had planned for two days in Miyazaki, but I realized later that without a car, it’s hard to see all the Nichinan coastal sites or the famous Takachiho gorge. I tried finding day tours that would take us to these areas, but all the day tours left out of Fukuoka! Or there was one leaving out of the Miyazaki cruise ship port, but you had to be part of a cruise ship.
So we ended up only seeing the Miyazaki Shinto shrine, Peace Tower, plus Aoshima’s Devils washboard. These can all be done in one day. So in hindsight, I should have just booked one night in Miyazaki. Oh well…we had a nice and non-rushed time here, which fits perfectly for this more “country side” part of Japan.
Must Eats in Miyazaki: Miyazaki beef (claimed to be better than Kobe beef), the special breed of chicken here jitokko (grilled black chicken), and chicken nanban (fried chicken w tartar sauce).
Day 1
Miyazaki Shinto Shrine where the semi-mythical first emperor of Japan and founder of the Yamato court, Jimmu, is burried. He is part god and part human. (The shrine is just 1 stop north of the JR Miyazaki station. Get off at Miyazaki-Jingu. Your JR pass works.). Spectacular centuries old wisteria vines cover the thickly forested grounds
Path to Miyazaki shrine is also a beautiful walk
Natural History Museum in Miyazaki had an exhibit of “concretions” found in the coastal areas of Japan. These are round or oval balls of rocks with “fossils”. (These don’t have to be very old. Concretions can form within 50 years is what I think the guy said.) They form between layers of sedimentary rock/soil around usually organic materials as the nucleus that then hardens the surrounding rock through mineral secretion from the organic materials. After erosion of the softer rock around the concretions, these roundish balls of rocks are revealed. I can’t believe how much work goes into unearthing these fossils. They MRI the balls first before excavating the “fossils”. They also talked about how strong concretions are compared to just plain concrete, and their plans to use this technology to reinforce tunnels and structures.
Permanent Exhibits at the natural history museum: Open 9-5, closed Tues, free. Also, Behind the museum are 4 traditional style Miyazaki farmhouses.
A 30 minute walk from the museum plus lots of stairs later…brings you to the peace tower
Heiwadai Park and Peace Tower: The actual inscription is "one house" and was erected in 1940 as a symbol of Japanese expansion and military might and to commemorate first emperor Jimmu, but was renamed as Peace tower by US in 1946 after WWII. The peace tower may remind you of Inca or Khmer monuments, as it's made of stones from all over the world. It was also the Starting point of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. If you stand at this spot pictured here and clap your hands you can hear the echo back from the tower. Cool, huh?
Heiwadai Park: Behind the peace tower are over 400 earthenware figures found in Kofun period tombs, excavated from Saitobaru burial mounds. These here are replicas. There’s also a TON of mosquitoes here and I got bitten several times after just being here for 10 minutes.
For dinner, we tried to eat at Miyachiku, the Miyazaki beef place, but they were fully booked, so we made reservations for the next day, and walked over to the famous chicken namban place, Ogura Honten, BUT they too were also packed and would not accept any more people. So we wandered to this random izakaya. Even though it was a random find, the food was so good! We had a tofu salad, some skewers, some meatball croquettes and the two items pictured above: mini okonomiyaki and chicken namban. So what someone told me, was true. You don’t really have to research restaurants too much in Japan. Their standards are so much higher than here in the US, that most anywhere you go, the food will be pretty good.
Day 2
Aoshima Shrine has a red Tori gate and shrine set among tropical trees and shrubs on a tiny island. At low tide, you can see the "devils washboard" which is very striking. You can get here by riding the JR rail from Miyazaki station to Aoshima station and then walking 15 min across the bridge that connects the tiny island to the main land. (When we first arrived it was raining, and the walk to the island was quite windy. There’s hardly any shelter from the rain until you get to the shrine)
Off to the right of the shrine
People come to this shrine to wish for good luck. You buy a plate for 200 yen, make your wish, and then throw it into the designated black rocks area without breaking the plate. From Google translate, if the plate makes it into the designated area intact, your wish will come true.
However, IF the plate is broken, then that could mean either good or bad luck!
Uh… Hummm…
We saw tons of broken plates…So we decided not to chance it and get bad luck should the plate break.
This is the designated area to throw your plate. See how many are broken?! There are a few in tact, but this may take LOTS of practice!
Devils Washboard: this is all around Aoshima and is a striking geological phenomenon. It’s formed from layers of sandstone of various hardness. Then, 1000’s of years of wave erosion washed away the softer layers, leaving behind rows of hard sandstone that looks like this. So so cool!
Devils washboard close up.
We brought a thin two yak mat (a gift from my sister in law) to sit on the island beach to enjoy the devils washboard while eating a Miyazaki treat, this steamed brown sugar cupcake with cream cheese. Not too sweet, pretty good! We bought these at the JR Miyazaki train station at a confectionery shop that’s Nextdoor to the one that sold strawberry mochi with cream cheese. It was the perfect treat to enjoy by the ocean.
Hiking around Aoshima island
More views of devils washboard as you circle the island. The island is tiny and you can hike this pretty quickly!
Lunch of Katsu curry and Sochu at the garden cafe
Miyako Botanical Garden (open daily although the green houses may be closed on Wednesday, free) and quite nice for a free garden. There’s green houses with lots of tropical fruit trees like dragon fruit, papaya, pineapple, coffee, etc. There’s even a few benches in the shade to sit and enjoy the ocean views.
Views of the shrine and devils wash pbiard from the walk back from the botanical garden
Mangoes are famous here in Miyazaki too, so we got some in the form of a drink and on top of ice cream, but Oct is not mango season, so I didn’t taste any difference between the mango here vs back in the states. But I had watched
this video of Miyazaki mangoes so I probably hyped up the tastiness in my head.
When we took the train back to the Miyazaki JR Station, we stopped off at this confectionery store Hidaka. Its right at the station, and sells the well known strawberry mochi with red bean, cream cheese and chestnut.
Sorry my mochi cutting skills are not that great, but you can see the cream cheese and chestnut with strawberry and red bean. Its definitely different, but I think I just prefer my mochi simple…
Dinner at the Mark Weins recommended Miyachiku which has Miyazaki beef. As I explained before, we had to make reservations the night before since they were packed yesterday.
Here’s the meat we got: they place the meat on a platter with a cow image, and the beef pieces are placed on where the cuts come from.
My husband really enjoyed this, and I liked it too, but a tad too fatty for me. Ha ha, yeah I’m definitely not a beef connoisseur!
