One thing I love about Japan are the many public holidays that are scattered around the year. That there is very little proper vacation I am not so fond of however, so when there was a chance in September to have a long weekend, we thought it was a good idea to do a little mini family vacation since my wife has been working all summer. The island of Kyushu where we live is so beautiful and full of nature, so we decided to do a weekend outing to Oita prefecture in northeastern Kyushu.
Our first stop was a wildlife park called African Safari where we drove our own car around a beautiful park in the mountains where tigers and elephants and zebras and giraffes live. I have never been on a safari in Africa, but I guess this must be as close as you can come to a real safari experience if you live in Japan. Our son was very excited to see all the animals roaming around freely and he was making sure his mum and dad did not open the windows during the drive, as we were instructed not to do.
Coming to Oita was a little bit like coming to Scotland as well, green grass hills and mountainsides instead of mountains only covered with trees and forest. It was so beautiful, and the clouds interacting with the mountain tops made it all even more captivating. What caught our son’s attention though, was another kind of cloudy smoke – the steam rising from all the hot springs in the area. We could even see steam coming out of the storm drains. We stayed the night at a hotel with onsen – natural hot spring – and a warm onsen bath is indeed the perfect way to end a day.
The next day, we visited Harmony Land, a Hello Kitty theme park with attractions and performances, a train running around the park and a castle where Hello Kitty lives – for our son it was like heaven. He was so happy to experience this imaginary world, doing his life’s first rides on amusement park attractions like roller coasters and merry-go-rounds. It was so much fun that he has every day since asked when we will go to Hello Kitty land again. And this November marking Hello Kitty’s 50th birthday, maybe it would be a good idea to go and celebrate her.
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