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Hey Hive/Steemit!
Woohoo 100 travel posts! That's crazy! I can't believe we finally got here, after 4 years of posting travel content from the steemit days! This series was one of the first I ever started on steemit and I can't believe I'm at 100 posts! Cheers to another 100 more in the future! 🥂
So if you didn't catch the last couple of posts, we're currently on a journey in Fukuoka that we went on back in May 2017! Neither of us had ever been to that part of Japan before and since there were some cheap flights we decided to go explore a new region together! Here we go!
Last week, we finished up exploring Fukuoka Tower by heading to the Lovers' Sanctuary and caught a beautiful seaside sunset!
Although the tower itself was quite cramped even with just a couple of people around (thanks to the unique triangular shape), it was actually really cool and what a view! I definitely prefer nature views to urban views so it was so awesome to see this seaside view irl!
Anyway, I teased where we heading to at the end of the last post, which I guess you already know from the title, so here we go!
26 May 2017. Friday.
We got up a little earlier than usual since we were heading to a special place that was quite a ways away. So we were at the train station by 1pm! And since we were gonna be on the train for quite some time, we got our favourite gyudon from Sukiya for a takeout lunch!
We ate a little bit of our lunch while waiting for the train since we had 15 minutes or so, and the aroma of the gyūdon was too goood to resist any longer!
After a couple of bites, our train arrived! We were taking a special train today, and it looked cool too! Definitely a step up from the dull-coloured steel tubes you'd see on the metro that's for sure.
We didn't have reserved seats though, so we were lucky to get seats next to each other!
So the thing about this train is it's a limited express train that travels from Hakata, Fukuoka all the way to Sasebo! It's more than 100km away by car so trains are definitely essential! Here's what it looks like on the map:
Source: Google Maps
And as a limited express train, it will make some stops along the way, but skip a few as well, which definitely saves time especially across long distances like this.
Source: jprail
The train ride took us across the beautiful Japan countryside! It's also why I love traveling by train whenever we travel. In Singapore you don't see views like this because most of our trains are underground.
And about 1.5 hours later, we arrived in Arita!
And it was only upon arrival that we realised that Arita was actually quite a small town, with next to no public transport! They didn't even have buses and it was quite a distance from the station to Arita Porcelain Park, so we had no other choice but to take a taxi.
This was the first and (probably) last time we ever took a taxi because the fares in Japan are ridiculously high! Even in Singapore I try not to take cabs if I can help it, since they always jack up the price even with a meter, but in Japan it's practically extortion! No wonder everyone takes the trains here. I could just feel my heart rate rising every time I saw the meter jump. I can't remember how much it costs but according to Japan Guide it was around 1500 yen! But we really didn't have any other option, so oh well.
At least the trip wasn't too long; about 10 minutes later, we arrived! Don't be fooled though, to walk it would definitely take a hecc of a lot longer because the park was 4.8km away! Yeah there was no way we were gonna walk that far.
We were dropped off at the carpark and immediately it felt like we were transported into a whole new world! The architecture here was so unique and different; definitely meant to mimic German architecture and it looked just like those small villages I read about in fairy tales!
There were of course some Japanese words to remind us that we're still in Japan, and the gift shop did have that signature Japanese look to it.
But you can tell they really put a lot of effort into creating that German village motif in this park.
I was actually quite curious as to why they chose a theme like this for the Arita Porcelain Park, since the porcelain itself is of Asian descent, with Arita-yaki (the name for this style of pottery) being founded by Korean craftsmen whom were brought to Japan by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the early 1600s.
It was actually really empty; initially we thought the park was abandoned, but there were a few other cars in the carpark, and the main attraction still looked pretty solid so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The biggest and most stunning attraction in this park was definitely the palace!
Apparently it's called Zwinger, and is a famous palace in Dresden, Germany! It's also one of the most crucial buildings of the Baroque period in Germany. The original Zwinger was built in 1709 as an orangery and garden as well as a representative festival area. Its richly decorated pavilions and the galleries lined with balustrades, figures and vases testify to the splendor during the reign of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and elected King of Poland (Cr: Wiki).
It was definitely spectacular that's for sure! And it was huge! I think the actual palace is a lot bigger in terms of capacity, but for them to build an exact replica of the crown gate and long adjoining galleries on either side is pretty phenomenal itself!
At the base of the palace gate, we actually saw a couple of people! It was so quiet other than their noise that we could hear them from all the way here. I think they were Korean tourists actually because we couldn't understand them.
But here's a closer look at the palace! I'm not familiar with the original but the details imply that they must have put in a lot of effort to make this replica look exactly like the one in Germany.
It was absolutely beautiful! And it definitely made me feel like we were in Germany!
They even built/planted a miniature version of the palace gardens! I'm not sure if this was as accurate as the original palace gardens since that one had fountains in 4 quadrants as well, but it still looked really nice regardless.
Just the sight of all the small hedges and the luscious green mountains in the background contrasted by the bright blue sky.. Man, what a view! If only those people weren't right in the middle of it!
This was the view from the end of garden! I guess they did have one fountain here then.
And walking a little ways down the road of the garden, I finally got far enough to take a full view of the palace! And it was truly magnificent!
Well I think that's gonna be it for now! Tune in next week when we explore more of Arita Porcelain Park!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #99 (Japan 4.0: Fukuoka): Sunset in Lovers' Sanctuary! 💕
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