Why Can’t We Live Under the Sea?

We had breakfast included with our stay at the hotel in Mojiko. It was a buffet style, our least favourite style of breakfast. There was a sign that said breakfast would be busy between 7-8am but we thought “well if we get there right at the start at 7am it should be ok”…. And look, it was ok and it was a pretty decent buffet, but oh my lord! It was like a shark feeding frenzy!!! People pushing and shoving and piling their plates high with every single item of the buffet. Bit of a shock after our previous accommodations.

After breakfast, we had one mission for the day- to walk through the Kanmon Under sea pedestrian tunnel. Yes, that really was the inspiration for staying in this town. We saw it on an episode of Document 72 Hours on NHK once and I have wanted to go ever since. I mean, who DOESNT want to walk under the ocean?

It was about a 25 minute walk to the entrance of the tunnel and we stumbled across a cute little temple area by the water.

Just around the corner from here was the Kanmon Under Sea Pedestrian tunnel.

You have to catch an elevator down to the start of the tunnel. There was this notice about a wild boar being caught on CCTV in the tunnel. How did it get down there?!?!? It would have had to have caught the elevator!!! 🤣

There is a stamp at the start and the end of the tunnel – and if you get both you can collect a special prize at the tourist bureau.

And then we were off through the tunnel. There were lots of people walking through – commuting, exercising, tourists etc etc It’s so cool. At the half way point we were both in Kyushu and Honshu, ha ha yes hysterical I know.

At the end of the tunnel we redeemed our stamp rally for a special card to say we walked under the tunnel. Japan has the coolest thing. My favourite thing is always seeing adults enjoying things like collecting stamps or whatever as much as the children (even more so really) It’s how it should be. Why do we have to be so serious and boring and not like cute things just because we are adults?

We were now in the town of Shimonoseki on Honshu. I had kind of thought we would walk through the tunnel and that would be about it. There was a fish market up a bit further that I wanted to check out but I didn’t really think there was going to be much to see….well I can tell you I was very wrong!

First stop in Shimonoseki was a trip on a cable car up a mountain to Hinoyama. The cherry blossoms were just on the way out but there were still some nice ones to see and there was great views from the top.

It’s hard to capture the views in photo form – but you could see Kyushu, Honshu, various islands and seas and *possibly* even Korea – although I might be making that up. We caught yeh cable car back down and at the bottom of the mountain was an amazing tulip display. Again really hard to capture in a photo but it looks so awesome. Plus, I love tulips.

We were getting hungry by now so decided to head to the fish market. We weren’t entirely sure what we would find – but we had heard rumours of delicious “choose your own” fish products to put over rice. We will see…

We passed by a cool temple but no time to visit because hungry. Maybe we will come back and see it?

Suddenly, we could tell we were getting close to the fish market – from out of nowhere appeared thousand of people sitting on the grass and pier eating amazing looking seafood!!!

We got to the market and it was packed! People were going wild! Ha ha – fair enough too – it was pretty damn impressive!!!

Lots of stalls where you can line up and chose whatever sushi you want. And they had EVERYTHING you could possibly imagine. Even whale. I know that is a bit controversial- but I am not here to judge. (For the record – we did not eat the whale)

We ended up getting – chu toro (fatty tuna), scallop and crab sushi and we could not resist a uni (sea urchin) and ikura (salmon roe) rice bowl. We went outside to find a bit of grass to sit on and enjoy our lunch in the sun.

Yep, that was pretty much the best lunch ever. I wanted more but didn’t want to over eat – although I did go back and snap up 2 delicious crispy fried prawns. No photos as are them too quickly.

Great fish market, great fresh seafood – Karato market – would recommend 👍🏻

We had a look around the pier – there were a few shops, restaurants, cafes etc so we stopped for ice cream.

And some photos with the pufferfish.

We kept walking along the promenade until we came across a small amusement park. I got a photo with Pikachu.

And since we were feeling a little nostalgic- we couldn’t resist a ride on the Ferris wheel 🎡

We weren’t really sure how to get back to our side the country from here – there were three options –

1. walk all the way back the same way we came – too tiring, already down like 20,000 steps

2. Catch a ferry – bit pricey, and the sea looked a little rough

3. Continue walking on to Shimonoseki station and catch the train

We opted for the last option – hoping to possibly find dinner near the station. In hindsight I think we should’ve taken the ferry as we lost a lot of time with this option. Also the dinner options at Shimonoseki were limited and all the shops were closed by the time we got there.

So, it was back to Mojiko via the local train – and guess what we had to have for dinner? The only thing available in Mojiko – Baked Curry!!!! It was OK…I’m not gonna say it was the best thing ever, but it was better than I thought. But it was very heavy – curry, egg, cheese…I think Steve enjoyed it more than I did.