After visiting Nara on our last day in Kyoto, we packed up our toys and left for Fukuoka. Fukuoka was about 3 or so hours on the train, heading down to the bottom part of Japan. We found our hostel easily from the train station and set up camp.
We headed down to the local 7-11 and bought cocktails in a can (we got a Fuzzy Navel, a 'Tequila Cocktail", beer, and wine) and proceed to relax on the roof of our hostel. There we met an Aussie guy, Michael, who we caught up with again the following night..but more on that later.
During our first and only day in Fukuoka, we took a walk down to a temple which had the oldest Zen Garden in Japan. Unfortunately it was closed to the public, but we wondered around the surrounding garden anyway. We ran into Michael here as he had come to see the garden too.
We then marched further down towards the city center, and stopped of in a place called Canal City. Basically this is a very large grouping of indoor shopping complexes, built around some man-made canals (similar to Amsterdam). We snooped around the shops for a while, stopped off at a sushi train, a games parlor (like Timezone), and snagged some cheap clothes. On our way out we were treated to some Asian rappers performing in the main center area. That was interesting! There was a guy mixing the tunes on a table, who also seemed to have controls to a massive fountain behind him, and could make the water spurt up and dance with the music. Two female rappers did their thing, which we found a bit amusing/different, but the crowd seemed to love it.
We pushed on towards the city center and found that Fukuoka is a very modern and new city. Lots of sky scrappers and department stores. Quite a nice place really. We spent ages looking for 'Robot Square' which was marked on our map and supposed to be full of little robots to look at and new technologies to marvel at..however we got very hot and bothered looking for this bloody place, and in our frustration we stormed over to the nearest Irish pub to chill out and gather ourselves....only to find they served nothing but beer until 4pm. A serious problem!
Anyway, we survived the appalling lack of drink options, and ventured out into the building were Robot Square was supposed to be. After asking a very nice help desk lady, we were told that Robot Square had shut down and moved to a whole different suburb..one that was way to far away to walk to. Ahhh!
Even more hot and bothered we decided to walk back to our hostel, picking up more canned booze on the way, to relax. Again we met up with Michael, but this time we made acquaintances with 2 Scottish blokes, and an Irish who could speak and read Japanese. As it was the 1st September, there was a massive fireworks display over the water nearby..so we all decided to venture out and have a look. We were treated to a massive crowd, many females in Kimono's, and a full hour of amazing fireworks. As the Japanese love everything to be cute, there were even fireworks that formed love hearts and smiley faces! Very cute.
Afterwards we decided we were starving and in much need of Booze, so we walked around for a while until we found somewhere that was still open and willing to take in 5 starving and slightly rowdy foreigners. We found a great place where we had to sit on mats on the floor with low tables, very cheap food and great wine. We would have looked ridiculous because none of us were comfortable sitting on our legs elegantly, so all of us had our legs sprawled out where ever there was room.
The two Scottish guys somehow managed to chat up two lovely Japanese ladies on the opposite table to us...they turned out to be in their mid 30's, but they didn't look it! After a couple hours it was decided we needed to move on before things got beyond the point of return with the ladies, so we stumbled out and got back to the train station. One of the Scotts decided he hadn't quite had enough booze or action, so he headed out to the city center to tear it up some more.
Kez and Michael piked out, but Ize, the last Scot, and the Irishman headed out to a tiny local bar which they found accidentally while wandering the street. It was basically a long room, just a little more that a corridor, with a bar down one length. There was a short but very loud bar lady and one regular. The Irishman and the bar lady had a great yarn, with Ize and the Scot failing miserably at trying to keep up. The old regular occasionally put his 2 cents in, but was even harder to understand due to an accent from one of the southern islands. After about an hour of this we decided to say our goodbyes, but this took almost another hour. Ize was quite scared with the lady stoping and staring at him and demanding that he learn more japanese.
After the night came to a close at around 2am-ish, we found each other wandering bleary eyed around the hostel the next morning. The Scottish dude that headed out onto the town for the night was found huddled up in his jammies, with a bottle of water, with that "im in terrible pain but had a fantastic night" look. Ha ha.
So in conclusion, Fukuoka was great fun. We donned our packs and swore all the way to the train station while they tore at our shoulders due to gross over-packing.
Tokyo, here we come!! Again...
We headed down to the local 7-11 and bought cocktails in a can (we got a Fuzzy Navel, a 'Tequila Cocktail", beer, and wine) and proceed to relax on the roof of our hostel. There we met an Aussie guy, Michael, who we caught up with again the following night..but more on that later.
During our first and only day in Fukuoka, we took a walk down to a temple which had the oldest Zen Garden in Japan. Unfortunately it was closed to the public, but we wondered around the surrounding garden anyway. We ran into Michael here as he had come to see the garden too.
We then marched further down towards the city center, and stopped of in a place called Canal City. Basically this is a very large grouping of indoor shopping complexes, built around some man-made canals (similar to Amsterdam). We snooped around the shops for a while, stopped off at a sushi train, a games parlor (like Timezone), and snagged some cheap clothes. On our way out we were treated to some Asian rappers performing in the main center area. That was interesting! There was a guy mixing the tunes on a table, who also seemed to have controls to a massive fountain behind him, and could make the water spurt up and dance with the music. Two female rappers did their thing, which we found a bit amusing/different, but the crowd seemed to love it.
We pushed on towards the city center and found that Fukuoka is a very modern and new city. Lots of sky scrappers and department stores. Quite a nice place really. We spent ages looking for 'Robot Square' which was marked on our map and supposed to be full of little robots to look at and new technologies to marvel at..however we got very hot and bothered looking for this bloody place, and in our frustration we stormed over to the nearest Irish pub to chill out and gather ourselves....only to find they served nothing but beer until 4pm. A serious problem!
Anyway, we survived the appalling lack of drink options, and ventured out into the building were Robot Square was supposed to be. After asking a very nice help desk lady, we were told that Robot Square had shut down and moved to a whole different suburb..one that was way to far away to walk to. Ahhh!
Even more hot and bothered we decided to walk back to our hostel, picking up more canned booze on the way, to relax. Again we met up with Michael, but this time we made acquaintances with 2 Scottish blokes, and an Irish who could speak and read Japanese. As it was the 1st September, there was a massive fireworks display over the water nearby..so we all decided to venture out and have a look. We were treated to a massive crowd, many females in Kimono's, and a full hour of amazing fireworks. As the Japanese love everything to be cute, there were even fireworks that formed love hearts and smiley faces! Very cute.
Afterwards we decided we were starving and in much need of Booze, so we walked around for a while until we found somewhere that was still open and willing to take in 5 starving and slightly rowdy foreigners. We found a great place where we had to sit on mats on the floor with low tables, very cheap food and great wine. We would have looked ridiculous because none of us were comfortable sitting on our legs elegantly, so all of us had our legs sprawled out where ever there was room.
The two Scottish guys somehow managed to chat up two lovely Japanese ladies on the opposite table to us...they turned out to be in their mid 30's, but they didn't look it! After a couple hours it was decided we needed to move on before things got beyond the point of return with the ladies, so we stumbled out and got back to the train station. One of the Scotts decided he hadn't quite had enough booze or action, so he headed out to the city center to tear it up some more.
Kez and Michael piked out, but Ize, the last Scot, and the Irishman headed out to a tiny local bar which they found accidentally while wandering the street. It was basically a long room, just a little more that a corridor, with a bar down one length. There was a short but very loud bar lady and one regular. The Irishman and the bar lady had a great yarn, with Ize and the Scot failing miserably at trying to keep up. The old regular occasionally put his 2 cents in, but was even harder to understand due to an accent from one of the southern islands. After about an hour of this we decided to say our goodbyes, but this took almost another hour. Ize was quite scared with the lady stoping and staring at him and demanding that he learn more japanese.
After the night came to a close at around 2am-ish, we found each other wandering bleary eyed around the hostel the next morning. The Scottish dude that headed out onto the town for the night was found huddled up in his jammies, with a bottle of water, with that "im in terrible pain but had a fantastic night" look. Ha ha.
So in conclusion, Fukuoka was great fun. We donned our packs and swore all the way to the train station while they tore at our shoulders due to gross over-packing.
Tokyo, here we come!! Again...
1. Here is Ize strapped into the game "Half Life 2" in one of the many game arcades (like Timezone on speed)