{"id":11446,"date":"2026-04-18T04:58:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11446"},"modified":"2026-05-28T20:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T03:52:15","slug":"japan-day-3-karatsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11446","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2026: Day 3 (Karatsu)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first thing I have to say is I can no longer trust Google Maps for transit info. Especially not in the Japanese countryside. I already had it make me walk further than I needed to because it\u2019s bad at backtracking even when it\u2019s quicker (i.e. getting off at a later station and walking back.) This morning I was planning on getting on a bus and then switching to a train because it was supposed to be the fastest way from Imari to Karatsu. Unfortunately Google Maps doesn\u2019t know that the weekend bus schedules are different here.<\/p>\n

I got to breakfast at the hotel and the whole cafeteria was full of high school girls. Or maybe college. I\u2019m old and kids look like kids. The buffet was picked over but fortunately most of them were finishing up and the staff started refilling things as I was making my choices. There were a LOT of choices.<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t fill up all of the spaces on the plate but I double-stacked two of the spaces. And while it looks like I didn\u2019t get a lot of food, I was completely stuffed.<\/p>\n

I made it to the station for the nonexistent 9:43am bus. The schedules told me the quickest way to Karatsu was to wait for the 11:03am train. That meant I had plenty of time to kill. Fortunately there was a free work space at the station with free power and WiFi. I should\u2019ve used that time to plan tomorrow\u2019s travels but I just watched some YouTube videos.<\/p>\n

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The train was even smaller than the one yesterday. Ran like a bus (again) and was diesel as well. It wound through the countryside and and made many stops but hardly anyone got on or off.<\/p>\n

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I made it to Karatsu around noon and had them clear my Suica card. At Arita I scanned the wrong IC card reader and I was warned that I would have to clear it when I got to the next JR station with a card reader which turned out to be Karatsu station a day later. i also got some suggestions from the tourist information desk. Then I took a cab to the ryokan I\u2019m staying at. Couldn\u2019t check in so early but they did let me stash my luggage. The ryokan wasn\u2019t close to the station but it was very close to the castle.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a view from the top of the castle of the peninsula where the ryokan is located.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/p>\n

And a view of the castle from the bridge leading from the peninsula.<\/p>\n

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Does it look like there are a lot of stairs to the castle? There were a lot of stairs to the castle.<\/p>\n

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There was a \u00a5100 elevator that I was planning to take on the way down, but I accidentally walked right by it and walked all the way down. Fortunately I didn\u2019t trip on the uneven stairs.<\/p>\n

The wisteria were starting to bloom and attracted a lot of bees.<\/p>\n

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The castle is a reproduction built during the Showa era which usually means it\u2019s all museum inside. At least it wasn\u2019t just concrete walls.<\/p>\n

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There were more stairs to climb but being so high up the view was pretty nice.<\/p>\n

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I walked to the former residence of Taketori, a local coal magnate. It was huge. The entry room was 4m tall and he even had his own noh stage in one of the wings. I didn\u2019t take any pictures of it but it was a mansion and a half.<\/p>\n

From there I went to Karatsu jinja (another shrine) where I again took no pictures. I do have one of the former Karatsu Bank that they proudly say looks like Tokyo station. The guy who designed Tokyo station was from Karatsu and designed both buildings.<\/p>\n

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Then I went to the Hikiyama Float exhibition hall where they house all of the portable shrines used during their big November festival. With that I had completed the recommended tourist route through town and thought I\u2019d better figure out where I\u2019m going tomorrow. I know I need to end up in Hagi, but I told my cousin I\u2019d swing by and have lunch with her in Tokuyama, which is kind of out of the way. I was recommended a small coffee shop near the station where I could sit down and stare at my phone and google maps.<\/p>\n

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The food on the menu looked delicious but I knew I\u2019d have plenty to eat back at the ryokan so I didn\u2019t get anything besides the cake and a cup of tea. I did sneak a picture of the inside.<\/p>\n

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I also didn\u2019t think I\u2019d need my usual Wilkinson but I took a picture of the selection in the station FamilyMart.<\/p>\n

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Then back to the ryokan. I haven\u2019t posted any pictures from my hotel windows because who needs pictures of parking lots? This is much better.<\/p>\n

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The owner\u2019s house is towards back of the garden and I could see him talking to some foreign guests.<\/p>\n

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And then dinner in the room. I\u2019m not going to describe things unless someone really needs to know. It was delicious.<\/p>\n

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My overeating continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first thing I have to say is I can no longer trust Google Maps for transit info. Especially not in the Japanese countryside. I already had it make me walk further than I needed to because it\u2019s bad at backtracking even when it\u2019s quicker (i.e. getting off at a later station and walking back.) This morning I was planning on getting on a bus and then switching to a train because it was supposed to be the fastest way from Imari to Karatsu. Unfortunately Google Maps doesn\u2019t know that the weekend bus schedules are different here. I got to breakfast at the hotel and the whole cafeteria was full … Continue reading Japan 2026: Day 3 (Karatsu)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11446"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11733,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11446\/revisions\/11733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}