Today was the start of our road trip! We were going to be driving to our next accommodation a couple of hours away in Sasebo, stopping at various places along the way.
We woke up early due to a bit of jet-lag still, so caught the sunrise from our room. We were in a nice corner room with huge windows.
Sakurai Shrine
After breakfast we collected the hire car nice and made our way out of the city. It wasn’t long until we were driving along the coast and were at our first stop, Futamigaura, the unusually white torii gate looking towards the wedded rocks of Sakurai Shrine
Keya no Ohto
A little further along the coast was Keya no Ohto, a volcanic peninsular with basalt rock caves, a shrine and walking trails. It has been given the nickname the Totoro forest due to the way the path is surrounded by trees, similar to the scene where Mei is chasing the totoros through the forest.
The shrine had no staff, just a cat!
Shiraito Waterfall
Continuing on, we headed inland and up into the hills in order to visit Shiraito Waterfall.
Mount Kagamiyama Park and Observation Deck
For our next stop, we went on a winding road up to the top of Mount Kagamiyama. At the top we went for a walk in the park to an observation deck and around various trails.
From the observation deck you had a good view of the huge 4km long Niji No Matsubara Pine Grove, planted nearly 400 years ago by the feudal lord to protect the neighbouring land from the strong winds and tides
Karatsu
Our final sightseeing spot for the day was the small city of Karatsu. We started by visiting the castle
After visiting the castle, we went on a walking route around the town.
Kuratsu is in Saga prefecture, where the anime ‘Zombieland Saga’ is based. Lots of real places around the prefecture feature in the anime and illustrated man-hole covers have been installed to commemorate these. We thought it would be entertaining to hunt out ones that happened to be near where we were travelling. Kuratsu has two of these, one by the castle and another by the former Mitsubishi mining office (from 1908).
Drive-in Tori
For dinner we stopped at Drive-in Tori, a popular and highly rated local restaurant specialising in various chicken dishes. We had our own little room with a kotatsu table and grill to cook chicken and veg on, along with sides of chicken soup and chicken fried rice.
This restaurant was heavily featured in an episode of Zombie land Saga, so they had a lot of related things about, as well as one of the themed man-hole covers outside.
Rakuten Stay x Willstyle Sasebo
After dinner we completed the final part of the drive and made it to our accommodation. For the next four nights we were going to be staying in a little house that was part of a complex of purpose built holiday homes, on the outskirts of Sasebo.
