miscellaneous pictures

(or fukuoka, japan - the finale)

these are just random pictures that didn't really fit into the other posts... funny, different, strange... it's all here... enjoy!

on the street

no smoking on the streets of fukuoka!

even the manholes are interesting!

boys should not hit girls with their bikes!

fire hydrants are underground

except for the signs! which have advertising on them!

beware of the giant man-eating turtles! (i didn't even see any turtles!)

in the store

green tea kit-kat!
because women don't chew gum?!?

need an individual size glass of ice?

some people...

a burned out building with one room left is a perfectly suitable place to sell chestnuts!

yes, there are homeless people in japan. more than you would think. this was just outside the walls of the castle ruins...

in the train station at night after everything closes... people will sleep anywhere they can... so sad...

japan was a great experience, despite only being there for two days. it was truly a breath of fresh air for me. it helped me realize a lot of things about korea, most of which i will not subject you to. japan is just more open, in every way - the people, the buildings, the atmosphere, the variety of food, the different international stores...etc... the list goes on. i guess that japan is just more "modern" and "international" than korea. they aren't xenophobic or homogenous the way koreans are. they are more approachable. they are nicer (they smile and nod when you pass them in the street - in korea you don't exist). they understand what it means to queue for something and don't push to the front. like i said, the list goes on and i won't go into it any more...

hope you enjoyed following my little side trip... i guess the posts will resume to the regular "ranting about korea" that we've all grown accustomed to... hopefully not, things are looking up with less than four months to go... now i need to figure out what to do when i get home... any suggestions?

shrines and temples

(or fukuoka, japan part four)

there are tons of temples and shrines dotting the map of fukuoka. i made it to three. oh well, better luck next time, but with only two days, i had to choose wisely. it would be nice if there were some kind of ultimate guide to shrines and temples in fukuoka (or even japan for that matter) but if there is, i didn't have it. so i just had to go with my gut. the ones i visted were based on proximity to where i was and where i needed to be.

on friday, shortly after leaving the hostel (headed for the festival) i came upon ryuguji temple. it is tiny and hidden between two large office buildings, but being the first one i saw in japan, i had to stop in.

ryuguji temple

it's just a tiny little place and sorry the picture isn't that good... but (again) the weather was horrendous the whole time i was there. the story (according to the little plaque outside the temple) goes:

In 1222, a mermaid was cought, a sign which was taken to mean the eternity of our nation and thus was buried in the compound of ukinido temple. it was thought that the mermaid came from ryugu (sea god's palace) and hence the temple was renamed ryugu temple. in 1480, priest sogi who was a noted verse linking poet stayed here and held a hakata verse linking meeting where they linked verses composed of 100 phrases. he is also the author of the "chikushi travel sketch" describing his tour of kyushu.

sunday was my day of temple and shrine visiting, since i made it to two of the bigger ones in fukuoka. the first was kushida shrine.

kushida shrine (photo courtesy of may's there was all kinds of scaffolding up the right side when i was there...)

kushida was founded in 757 AD (now that's old!). it is in the heart of the old city of hakata and has many special items: the Eto arrow plate with carved chinese zodiac (see below), the brace of anchor stones recovered from the bay from mongolian invasions, the yamakasa portable shrine (see below), a ginko tree that is puportedly more than a thousand years old, and the grand deity Ohata Nushina-mikoto in enshrined there.

the Eto Arrow plate

the yamakasa portable shrine

a close(r) up shot of the yamakasa

in july the oiyama event of the Yamakasa-gion festival is held at kushida shrine. men wearing loincloths race carrying heavy wooden shrines (above) through the streets in a set route.

the front entrance to kushida

inside the main shrine

an artsy shot

another artsy shot

the old part of kushida shrine.

these are called torii gates. they mark the entrance to a shrine but since these were in the back of the main building i'm assuming they're the old ones. click for more detailed info on shinto shrines.

the last temple i visited (briefly) was tochoji temple. it really started pouring when i got there and my second memory card was full so i only got a few shots. again, i wish i had known more about the place before i wandered in, because now, having looked it up on the web it's a lot cooler than i thought and would have warranted deleting other pictures. Tochoji was founded in 806 by saint kobo after his return from china. it is the oldest temple in fukuoka.

tochoji temple - really doesn't do it justice... it was pouring and if you enlarge the picture you can see the rain.

all the statues were wearing aprons... not sure why...

buddha - 11 meters high and weighing 30 tons (photo courtesy of yahoo)

wish i'd gotten a picture of it myself... but i didn't even know that it was there. there are a bunch of other objects at this shrine i would have liked to see: the tombstones of the lords of the Kuroda clan, examples of calligraphy by the artist-priest Sendai, a thousand-handed statue of the goddess of mercy (designated an important cultural asset), and the calligraphy of the temple's founder, Taishi Kobo. next time?

well, i hope that's enough to satisfy your curiosity about temples and shrines... probably not, but you'll have to deal! coming up random bits of fukuoka (or the last post on this subject!)... so stay tuned!

real japanese food...

(or fukuoka, japan part three)

Saturday after my day of walking around the sights, i headed back to the hostel... thinking only of resting my poor feet. i was actually planning on chilling for a while and then going out to do some night photography of the city, but as they say, the best laid plans...

i met a canuck named andrew almost as soon as i got back to the hostel. he's been travelling around asia for the last three months and had just arrived in fukuoka. he wasa going out with a friend that he'd met in cambodia last month and asked me if i'd like to come along.

we met up with his friend midori and her friend mihwa at tenjin subway station. this is one of the main areas for going out so we thought it would be a good place to meet. i'd been there the evening before (that's where the dance took place) and so kind of knew my way around... it was nice to be with some locals though. we decided to go eat some real japanese food. we ended up on the sixth floor of a random building at futoppara.

miwha and midori

they ordered and wouldn't tell us what they got, so it was all a big surprise. the dishes came one by one served by a guy with the biggest bouffant hair i've seen on a man in a long time... sorry no pic...

our first course, salad... such smart girls!

our second course - mentaiko - an egg omelet with fish roe and sauce that tasted oddly similar to ketchup, but not quite.

a close up of the mentaiko... appetizing?

the third course - yaki ramen

this was fried noodles with fish flakes and sauce that was kind of like gravy - it wasn't that good... think ramen noodles with gravy... and fish flakes... i'd rather eat sushi!!! (for those who don't know, i'm not a huge fan of the delicasy...)

the fourth course - kooki horeu.

the girls had to look this up in their electronic dictionary. it's pig intestines with garlic stalk and a sweetish sauce. i only had one bite since it took me five minutes to chew and then i just couldn't swallow. the girls said that about half of japanese people love this dish and hald despise it... at our table three out of four enjoyed it. i was not one of them! the meat was just really chewy and after chewing for so long the flavour changed and it was unbearable.

after eating we ordered a pitcher of sake...when in rome... or, rather, japan... i'd never had sake before and had to try it. it came in this cute little pot and it was hot - which i was not expecting. i loved it. it was definitely better than it's korean counterpart! it was kind of sweet but with a slight aftertaste of rice. it went straight to my head too! definitely something i would have again.

pouring the sake.

finally when it was all done, a crowd of japanese people sitting behind us started talking to us - can't quite remember how... they said something in english and i turned around, i think. anyway, they were really nice but could only say hello in english. nonetheless one of the guys insisted on getting a photo with me - more movie star syndrome - and then he reciprocated for me.

me, the random japanese guy and andrew.

it was a really great meal and it was made better by having it with some really cool women... and a canuck. we parted ways with the girls and headed back to the hostel, exhausted after a day of (for me) sightseeing and travel (for andrew).

coming up shrines and temples in fukuoka... so stay tuned!

sightseeing

(or fukuoka, japan part two)

i visited the canal city complex on friday early evening. it's basically a giant mall but is often referred to as a city within the city. it is apparently one of the "largest composite complexes in all of Asia". it boasts hundreds of stores (including the gap, which i was exstatic about), tons of restaurants, two hotels, a theater, entertainment complex and on and on... it is huge. i went there twice actually and didn't see the whole thing... definitely worth checking out. oh! and the best part was Wendy's!! that's right i had a REAL bacon cheeseburger - it was to die for!!!

canal city (or a part of it anyway)

it's called canal city because of the canal that runs through it... here children are playing in the water - totally permitted and even encouraged!

a nicer shot of the canal with the fountain that was exploding to songs by ABBA... promo for "mamma mia" which was playing at the theater.

wendy's in japan - looks like every other wendy's i've ever been to!

on saturday i got up and out of the hostel by 9 AM. i had a lot to see and do and couldn't waste any time lying about! i headed for the "downtown" area to the ruins of fukuoka castle. it was built by Lord Nagamasa Kuroda in the early 17th century. it's more or less a giant park now... with tennis courts, a baseball diamond, and a lot of trees. it was really nice to walk around... sadly my camera batteries died as i got to the castle, so i don't have many (good) pictures. (i had just bought the batteries too... argh!!!)

a walkway up into the castle.

one of the walls... just gives you an idea of how massive it was! it took me about an hour to walk around the whole thing.

next to the castle ruins is ohori park. a huge man made lake (which was origianlly part of the castles' moat) sits in the middle with lots of trees and generally pretty views. of course, having finally gotten some batteries, mother nature decided it was time to let go and it started pouring rain on me right when i entered the park. i had my umbrella so i managed to walk through the center of the lake using a series of bridges and islands.

a map of the park - the path around the lake is two km's. i just walked around the right side and through the middle.

a view across the lake

gazebo (are they called that if they're japanese?) in the middle of the lake.

one of the bridges across.

when i emerged from the park i found a coffee shop to relax in for a bit - mr. donut - and wait for the rain to die down. at this time, my camera informed me that my memory card was full so i had to find somewhere to buy another one... argh!!! stupid camera! (the annoyance was only heightened by the fact that i had thought that i'd have a new camera by that time... i was going to buy one in japan, but as it turns out they're cheaper in korea... so it'll have to wait until i get to seoul again.) after the rain slowed a bit i made my way on the subway toward fukuoka tower. i was going to walk, but didn't because of the rain.

i found the fukuoka city museum before the tower so i stopped in to get out of the rain again. what better place to spend a rainy afternoon than in a museum? as you can tell by the name the museum is all about the history of fukuoka... it was an interesting if not short exhibit with lots of pottery, knives, clothes... etc... from the area. the oldest bits being from around the stone age... it was a nice way to get out of the rain.

fukuoka city museum - yes that's the tower in the background...

i finally got to the tower at around 2:30 PM (remember i've been walking almost non-stop since 9 in the morning) - i was exhausted... but the sightseeing must go on.

fukuoka tower

the tower was built in 1989. it is 234 meters high but the observation deck is at 123 meters. it is covered with 8000 half mirrors giving it the nickname of "the mirror sail". it is designed to withstand magnitude seven earthquakes and winds of up to 63 miles per second. it weighs over 28,000 tons, with 25,000 of that underground. it cost six billion ¥ (in 1989) to build and is the highest seaside tower in all of japan!

towards korea.

towards canada.

up the coast (nice looking beach)

into the city...

after taking in the view - albeit not a very good one with the rain... i had a too-expensive glass of beer at the top and left it behind to walk to hawk's town. i also passed by the fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome - home to the fukuoka Seahawks baseball team. it was the first dome in japan to havea retractable roof. there was a game going on, but i didn't know until it was over, or maybe i could have gone... oh well, next time.

the dome.

hawks town mall.

after wandering around the mall for ages - bought a hoodie, and a couple of other small things i went to the hard rock cafe. there is a first for everything! i don't think i've ever been to one before... and they had club sandwiches on the menu and i just couldn't resist! it was good, but nothing like a club back home... at least the bacon was real!!! it was tasty.

i finally headed back to the hostel at around 6:30 exhausted from my day... thinking about how nice it would be to curl up on the couch and rest my poor feet... but alas... that is never what happens when you really want it...(and a good thing too!) so stay tuned for my adventures in japanese food with real japanese people and a canuck i met along the way...