After having some fun in Harmony Land we had a long journey from Oita to Miyazaki, two of the largest prefectures in Kyushu. We had our lunch in a service station before crossing the prefectural boundary into the Miyazaki Prefecture.

Our following destination was the Ocean Dome, a part of the Seagaia project by Phoenix Resort, Ltd. The Ocean Dome was certified by the Guiness Book of Records to be the largest indoor water park in the world. It was late in the afternoon (around 5pm) when we reached the outskirts of the Seagaia Complex where the Ocean Dome was located. Viewed from outside the Dome looks something like a long, semi-cylindrical building with 2 giant windows acting as the roof.
Click on the left picture or here to see more views .
The giant roof windows cleave during day times to allow sunshine. When it gets dark or when it rains, however, they close. In order to simulate a summer-like environment throughout the year, the air temperature is kept at 30 degrees Celsius while the water is kept at 28 degrees. Ugh, definitely one of my most aversive types of conditions!

On entrance we were stamped on our arms an invisible ink which would show up only under an ultra-violet lamp. The purpose was for re-entry validation. Our problem was, we couldn't swim. At first we had no intentions of staying in the Dome for too long. We browsed around the large department store to the opposite. There was an automatic cash dispenser at one end of the store where I hoped I could make a cash advance with my VISA credit card. To no avail. I won't hesitate to emphasize the inefficiency, inconvenience and more than often lack of services offered to tourists by banks in Japan. I think that was downright abysmal - one thing on which they should seriously improve second to poor air-conditioning.

My disappointment, however, was more than compensated by the display items in the store. They sold souvenirs, clothes, food, dairy products and fruit. The famous Miyazaki beef was also on display in small portions of several ounces carrying prohibitively elevated price tags. We could only salivate. Sigh! There was a myriad of assorted cookies on display almost everywhere in the store free for tasting before you buy. They're formidably hard to resist but we did not really spend much there owing to lack of cash.

After half-an-hour's browsing we returned to the Dome. We decided to catch a glimpse of what was happening in the artificial beach where everybody had to go bare feet. I am sure your feet will complain the first time you step on the "sand" made with very coarse granules the size of 2-3 rice grains. It hurts if your feet are not yet in tune with the sand but on the other hand it is a good way to massage the soles of your feet. Everything is artificial there, even the waves. Raymond almost lost his pair of spectacles in an unexpectedly big wave. Apart from the beach there were other places of attraction. We visited the Dragon Slider, the Water Crash, the Lost World and the Adventure Theatre, all at extra costs but overall it's cheaper if a combination ticket is used.

The whole evening of fun was concluded with a laser show at 8:15pm. The plot was on the fight between Evil and Good, albeit very vaguely brought out. Notwithstanding the quite badly presented story, the overall show was otherwise spectacular.

We left the Ocean Dome without having dinner. The coach carried us to the City of Miyazaki where we stayed in Hotel Central, a compact hotel with compact rooms and basic services. We could hardly squeeze our luggage and belongings into our room. Dinner was not included for that evening so we had to dine out. Every one of us were given a simplified street map of the city including the location of the hotel (shown below).

The tour guide took us downtown and we were left on our own for an excursion to the night life of the town and to have dinner. The first scene to have captured our attention was Ichiban Street, (No.1 Street) Shopping Mall. We promptly made our way for a sushi bar where we had 2 pieces of sushi each of salmon, scallops, eel, salmon roe & toro together with tuna sashimi and hamachi sashimi. The tastes were generally a mite better than those found in HongKong albeit prices were a bit higher.

After voraciously finishing our feast of sushi, we wandered into the streets and made some video snaps which didn't turn out to be satisfactory owing to dimness in the night. The streets were busy but with few or no very tall buildings. Japan (and Kyushu in particular) is such a volcanic place they have to take earthquakes into account when designing buildings. Again we went into a spacious convenient store where we discovered some of our treasures: outrageously expensive mangoes selling at around 2,000 Yen each, and plump, juicy home-grown grapes known as Kyoho and Pione, also at elevated prices. We seriously doubted the worth of the mangoes, but as we had both seen Kyoho and Pione grapes selling in some of the Japanese supermarkets in HongKong at much more prohibitive prices, we decided to give it a try. Wow it was literally "love at first munch". I just couldn't imagine there could be a match in the world for these grapes! We also bought some fresh milk. We knew too well in advance that Japanese milk are generally of exceptional quality.

While we carried on with our wanderings we came across a few brothels who waved at us. Instinctively we declined their offers, haha! We didn't take many photos before returning to the hotel because it was too dark. We had shower, enjoyed the snacks we had bought and called it a day.

Breakfast was served in the room opposite to ours. After breakfast the coach took us along the Coast of Nichinan where a major tourist attraction lies. This is a spectacular view of the footprints of Nature. Here the rocks in the seabed are being eroded by the tides over the centuries into scale form very much resembling gigantic washboards. At high tide they are mostly concealed and can hardly be seen. At low tide, however, they show up and the view turns out to be truly magnificent. They are known by the Japanese as the "Demon Washboards". Although the tide was not particularly low when we visited the whole picture was still captivating. In short, one of the most awesome masterpieces of Nature.
Below is a photograph we took. Notice the banana trees to the bottom-right corner.

As we were speeding past the Coast of Nichinan, we saw a fantastic view of the northwest Pacific Ocean. It was a fine, sunny morning when we arrived at Udo Jingu, which is near the Town of Nichinan. Its location is shown by the big red dot on the map to the left. It is a shrine built around a sea cave. We walked up a long, meandering way through a tunnel. Most of us were already exhausted and I was soaked in sweat when we reached the first entrance. I was already contemplating retreat when I saw hundreds of steps uphill still ahead of us! After all I somehow managed to complete the journey under the scourging sunlight. There was a footbridge not far beyond the main entrance where the Main Temple was located at the far end. We stayed there for a while. Raymond snapped some videos on people worshipping the gods and ancestral royal figures. I couldn't stay for long because I loathed the heat. On my way back sweat dripped from all over my body and especially the back of my T-shirt. I went to one of the lavatories, took off my T-shirt, wiped off my sweat with it and rinsed it in tap water. The only thing I could do was to twist out the water and put it on again, still damp. Fortunately it dried rapidly during the following journey in the coach thanks to the dry weather.

Not too far down the south lies the Sapoten (Cactus) Garden where hundreds of thousands of cactus of various species were planted on a small hill. At the foot of the hill were snack shops where you can find drinks and ice-cream made of truly exotic flavours: juices of the cactus plant and the cactus fruit, the former green in colour and the latter pink. The cactus fruit ice-cream was the tastier and it reminded me of the cactus fruit with which I was familiar decades ago in Peru. Again the sun was tormenting us so the stay was another brief one.

After a hectic and sweaty morning along the coast of Nichinan, we crossed the Miyazaki-Kagoshima boundary and headed for a town called Shibushi in the Kagoshima Prefecture.