travel

Kumamoto, Japan – The City of One Piece

“My fortune is yours for the taking, but you have to find it first! I left everything I own in One Piece.” – Gol D. Roger

Ever since, One Piece fans from around the world set sail for Kuamamoto, searching for One Piece (statues). The treasure that would make their (travel) dreams come true.

As part of a collaboration with Eiichiro Oda, author of ONE PIECE born and raised in Kumamoto City, a total of 10 statues of the Straw Hat Pirates of ONE PIECE have been installed throughout Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan! The One Piece statues are part of a larger project to help Kumamoto recover after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes and are being built thanks to the cooperation of and extremely generous donation from Mr. Oda.

Statue Location Map

My 'Off the Beaten Track' Bucket List Travel Map

Aka the bucket list

The below Map is my ‘away from the ordinary’ locations that I would recommend as well as places I’m planning to visit in the future. I hope you find it handy instead of searching ‘most popular things in X’. Remember as a wise man once said ‘sheep who follows crowd loses identity in wool’.

It has made me realise where my interests are and where gaps may be.

Yakushima, Japan

The inspiration for the setting of the Ghibli movie: Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫). It’s a pretty simple island:

Go for a hike and see all the big trees – see map below
See the nice beaches and coastline
There are turtles for snorkelling and if you go at the right time of year – hatching turtles

Old detailed blog.

Tanegashima, Japan

There’s only 1 real reason to go here: to witness a rocket launch. Believe it or not but this is the space centre that Pokemon base their Moss Deep Space station off. Old detailed blog.

Bonus - Kaimondake Aka Little Fuji

My Life Throughout COVID

Life through COVID was a change – it presented me with opportunities and challenges. I’ve tried a new format of of showing my life throughout these times: Story Maps: https://storymap.knightlab.com/. See my test Story Map below: