TacoTravels, With Love from Japan

One Day Trip to Kokura and Mojiko (Part 2: Mojiko)

Yesterday, I blogged about part one of my one day trip. Today, I’m going to continue with the rest of the trip, in Mojiko.

After visiting Kokura castle, we headed to the nearest station, only to discover that we would have to change trains at Kokura anyway. So now you know – you should just head back to Kokura station, even though it’s further away. Finally, though, we had reached Mojiko:

The station itself is pretty famous, but it’s undergoing renovations, so all I got was this shot of the inside, along with other people who were also taking photos.

We arrived around 2 pm, which translates to “HUNGRY”. So we headed over to Curry Honpo, which is a one minute walk away from the station. We did need to stop by the tourist counter to get the curry map, though.

Curry Honpo is on the second floor of the half brick building

 Mojiko is famous for its yaki curry (baked cury), and I decided to try the Banana yaki curry. Yes, banana. It sounds weird, but it was really good. The banana added a touch of sweetness which went really well with the curry. Not many people believe me, though, so I guess this is a “taste it to believe it” sort of combo.

After we finished lunch, we walked over to the Kyushu Railway History Museum:

Again, we got 20% off, thanks to the coupon booklet 😀

One part of the museum was the railway section, where you can look at (and even board) old trains.

In one train, we had to take off our shoes to get in.

Totally worth it, though, because the train was beautiful. I love the blue seats!

Once we took enough pictures of old trains, we went over to the main building (the remaining section is a miniature train park, where kids can ride mini trains)

And what greeted us: I’m not too sure what it is though.

I really liked the panorama of the different trains in Kyushu. Even the video (which accompanied the model trains running along the track) was pretty interesting. In the panorama: Kagoshima, Huis ten Bosch, Hakata, Mojiko, etc. So…. basically I’ve been to quite a few of those stations :p

And the view from the second floor. The second floor wasn’t as interesting to me though. It was more historical, while the first floor was way more interactive.

We couldn’t think of where else we wanted to go, so we just walked around Mojiko. It really has this chill vibe, and it looks like a lovely place to live in. Plus, it has yaki curry, which is a big point in its favour(;

Then again, it does have Banana man….

I saw someone dressed like him too. I don’t really get it…

The last thing I did before leaving was to try the banana ice-cream. I liked the banana chip that accompanied it, but the ice-cream itself took a bit of time getting used to. I guess I’m just not a fan of the processed banana flavour, even though I love the fruit very much (I mean, I do own a yonanas machine after all).

I would really like to come back to Kokura and Mojiko another time, and perhaps stay a night there, so that I have enough time to fully explore. If you’re taking a day trip, I would actually say to just focus on one area, instead of trying to go to both. Take your time, walk around and soak up the vibes. Especially for Mojiko; I can totally see myself just chilling there with a book(:

What do you think?