Lepod's Blog

The most famous cat island in Japan is Aoshima but we were unlikely to be heading that way so I searched for one near Okayama and found Manabe island, and it sounded like a good excuse to do a spot of boating so we decided to visit on the way to Fukuoka, making it quite a big day but why not? The previous day we’d had a lazy day as it was raining, we went to the post office and mailed some stuff back home like our bento boxes, save us carrying them all round the world. The post office reminded me of the old NZPO, the people were lovely and extremely helpful but they didn’t speak any English so we had a bit of fun getting it all sorted. Anyway, this morning we started out fairly early and jumped on the fast train to Fukuyama and stashed our luggage there, then took a local train to Kasaoka where the ferry leaves to Manabe. Kasaoka was a charming little town, we bought sandwiches and ate them in the square next to a memorial to an 800 year old war. The ferry was awesome, it reminded me a bit of a torpedo boat and it certainly honked along.

We backtracked to Fukuyama and picked up our stuff, and took the train to Fukuoka, our last stop in Japan. Luckily we managed to get some bento boxes for our tea on the way 😋

This was a long day and we got to hotel about 9 or so, fairly well knackered at least I certainly was. The cats were a little bit of a disappointment, I suspect most of them were at home in front of the fire as it is the middle of winter let’s face it.