Yufuin Getaway

I feel like I’ve finally started to slowly find my footing here in Japan. There is so much that I don’t know, but I’m really trying my best to focus on everything that I’ve learned so far instead of everything I have yet to learn. And along with that, I’ve gained more and more confidence to travel a bit more than I initially had!

About a month ago, some other JETs and I decided to have a bit of a girls’ trip over the Autumn Equinox long weekend. Since we were all over the prefecture, we wanted to find a meeting spot that was somewhat of an equal distance from us all. We settled on Yufuin, a city more or less in the center of Oita.

Like many places in Oita, I hadn’t heard of Yufuin until I got here. It’s a beautiful, picturesque town that is popular among Japanese people as a touristy weekend getaway. It reminded me a lot of Banff back in Canada. There were lots of cute little shops and amazing restaurants down streets that look like pedestrian streets until you realize there’s a car right behind you.

Taking the Train 

We had decided to meet in Yufuin at around 10 o’clock. Since I was taking the train, that meant that I had to wake up bright and early Saturday morning. I walked down to the station to catch the train into Oita City. I had already taken it to the city with a friend before, so I mostly understood what to do, but I was still stressing over being on the wrong platform (my station literally only has three) and catching the wrong train.

Luckily, I was on the correct train and enjoyed the forty-minute ride to the city. When I arrived, I looked for any open places I could walk around in to kill about an hour of time, but with it being eight in the morning, nothing was open besides the a few quick breakfast places. I settled in at the Seattle’s Best coffee shop with a massive coffee and a cinnamon bun, and spent my time people watching.

To make sure that I didn’t hit any bumps on my journey, I left to buy my ticket to Yufuin early. Unfortunately, being in a relatively rural placement, my station doesn’t accept IC cards (loadable public transport cards) so I haven’t bothered to get one. After finally finding out the price of a ticket to Yufuin and paying, I waited by the platform for about fifteen minutes. The train ended up only being two cars, which surprised me for it being a long weekend.

Once I was out of the city, the landscape quickly turned into rice patties and then into gorgeous mountains. It was a really beautiful ride the whole way there.

Exploring Yufuin

I was the last to arrive out of our group. The station exit looked right down the main street of the town. What reminded me so much of Banff was that at the end of the main street loomed a huge mountain. Everyone was taking photos right as they were exiting, but I really had to use the bathroom so the thought kind of slipped my mind…

I found the other JETs, Rachel, Rebecca, and Becky, waiting for me at the station. After a quick catch-up and somewhat of a plan made, we dropped our bags in Rebecca’s car and headed straight to a café. We sat there for close to an hour – if not more – just talking about our placements, how we’ve found our towns, and everything in between.

Also, sidenote, the coffee here is delicious. Not just in Yufuin, but all over. I have no clue what kind of beans are roasted here or what is put in the coffee, but it’s a lot better than what I drank in Canada.

Eventually we decided to actually walk around and not just spend our whole day in a coffee shop. The streets were so cute and so were the shops. There were so many Ghibli-related stores, all designed with such detail. It was a great experience and it definitely made me want to travel around even more.

At around noon, we stopped for lunch at an udon restaurant called InakaAn. I have discovered that udon is my favourite food in the entire universe. The chewy noodles in the soup is just so delicious – I could eat it for every single meal. I ordered the beef udon, my personal favourite, and we continued yapping from where we left off at the café. After lunch, we continued down the street, talked some more over ice cream, and eventually found ourselves at a cat café.

How Many Girls Does it Take to Find the Airbnb?

By the time we were done at the cat café, it was time to check into our Airbnb. This is where we all understood the meaning of “it’s about the journey”. The Airbnb, despite giving us incredibly detailed instructions on how to get to it, was so difficult to find!

Since the address wasn’t working when we typed it into Google, we went to the general area and tried to find the place based on photos that we had. Rebecca was driving while we were all looking for the parking that we were told to go to. Google Maps finally booted up and we followed it until it took us up the steepest, narrowest road that I have ever seen.

Instead of possibly not making it up the bumpy, near 90-degree angled hill, Becky and I left the car and ran up to make sure that one, the car would make it, and two, the house was actually up it. Luckily a delivery driver spotted the two confused looking foreigners running up the road and asked us where we were trying to go. He told us that cars weren’t supposed to come up this hill and gave us different directions on how to get to our Airbnb. We went back to the car to tell the others and embarrassingly, as we were turning back onto the main road, I spotted this sign:

Ending the Night

Our chaotic journey came to an end when we finally found our place. The house was big and beautiful and came with a private onsen. That was the first thing we did after a quick tour. It was my first onsen experience and it was so nice. The water was so warm and the temperature had cooled a little since we had arrived in Yufuin. We didn’t leave the bath until our stomachs started to grumble.

Dinner was at an izakaya that served really amazing food and drinks. We shared a bunch of different dishes and, can you guess, talked some more. After finishing up, we made a quick 7/11 stop to grab a few more drinks and started on the walk to the Airbnb…literally up the side of the mountain which I forgot to mention.

The night ended with another onsen dip before it started thundering and raining cats and dogs. We didn’t go to sleep until two in the morning, relaxing and having our girls’ night.