South to Fukuoka - Weekend Trip

I've been absent from my blog posts a bit, but I wanted to share some great pics I got from my trip to Fukuoka in late November.  November was a big travel month for me as I went to both Kansai area and then later to Fukuoka.  Fukuoka is located in Kyushu, the southernmost main island of Japan.  It's a port city and closest to Korea.  I spent 3 days there with a friend and, despite the short time, I really enjoyed it.

I took an early flight out of Haneda airport so I could arrive mid-morning in Fukuoka and have the full day to sight-see.  This meant getting up at 4am and getting on the first train of the morning, which was not fun.  It was so cold and dark wheeling my small carry-on through the streets.  I was just glad it didn't rain, but now I look back - I think I jinxed myself for the return.

My friend and I stayed at a hostel in Fukuoka city, centrally located and near a major train station.  It turned out to be a great spot, since we ended up using buses almost everywhere rather than trains.  Fukuoka has a great bus system and many are only 100 yen for anywhere on the route.  We didn't know about this until the hostel's cafe clerk mentioned it to us.  And, location was important for the buses - if you got on a bus near the hostel, it would be 230 yen.  But, walk one more block, and it'd be only 100 yen.  Great advice from the local!  

Day 1 - Saturday, 11/23:

While waiting for my friend to arrive (she took a later flight), I walked around the local area near Gofukumachi station and our hostel.  There are a lot of canals flowing through Fukuoka city and it was really a beautiful day.

 

In the afternoon, we headed to the seaside at Meinohama.  I really wanted to go to a small island called Nokonoshima.  This island has seasonal flowers and beautiful natural gardens.  Almost no one who I mentioned it to had heard of it, but I'm so glad we went.  It turned out to be one of the highlights of the entire weekend.  

We took a 15 minute ferry ride over the bay to reach the island.  I got some great pics over the water so check those out (link below).  Once we crossed to the island, there was a small village area which was very quaint and then took a bus up a windy, narrow, and one-lane road to the top of the island park.  There were some definite moments that I thought I might want to walk instead, but I made it up.  

There were many areas within the park: flower fields, landscaped trees/bushes, an animal pen (bunnies and goats), viewing spots, and benches scattered for relaxing.  I loved the flower fields the most!  They were so peaceful and uplifting - some of the areas felt like a scene out of a historical fairytale and others out of Alice in Wonderland.  There were some sharp red-colored flowers in season that were amazing. 

The really precious moment of this trip was sunset.  We were so lucky to have our schedule messed up and getting lost on one bus and waiting on a late ferry and so on... after all that, we turned out to be on the last group to go to the island, and therefore the last the leave.  The timing was perfect to capture sunset over the water and the colors were so beautiful! 

After we returned to the mainland, we headed to the Hakata neighborhood to check out some shopping districts, illuminations, and grab dinner at the yatai.  Fukuoka is famous for their yatai, which is Japanese for food stalls.  Vendors set up shop along the riverside and serve ramen and other dishes directly in front of you.  We knew we had to check it out.

ARASHI - spotted!  I'm such a fan.  :P

Illuminations near Hakata Station.

Aren't these beautiful - kinda like a river of lights?

This shopping mall has small canals running through it.  We didn't shop - just kinda went through it.

The cylindrical light thing was awesome - it played images like Santa Claus and such in the lights.

Riverfront

Our chosen yatai

Hakata Ramen - so GOOD!  I loved the sesame seeds and peanutty flavor.

Day 2 - Sunday, 11/24:

Since our first day was so action-packed, we tried to take things down a level on the next day.  We only hit a couple big places, then relaxed in the afternoon at the hostel before heading out to get dinner.

In the morning, we went to Ohori Koen (Ohori Park).  It's one of the largest parks in Fukuoka and has a small lake in the center.  It may seem a bit weird to go see a park when traveling, but this one was so beautiful and I love to see nature.  

Bridge to center island in lake.

Small pagoda located in center of the lake.  So pretty!

Lots of birds, ducks, and other animals lived in the area.

So peaceful - would love to spend the afternoon reading here.

Next, we walked to Fukuoka Castle - which were essentially a bunch of ruins, since the castle was destroyed and not rebuilt.  I'm not familiar with the history of it.  It wasn't anything special, but there were some great fall colors among the foliage.

As we walked to the station, I noticed this - isn't is great how there are two sidewalks?  One clearly sectioned for walkers and one for bikers?  The Japanese are so organized sometimes....  Ignore the person clearly breaking the rules on which side of the road to walk.  Classic Japanese double-standard at work even when it comes to walking.... sigh.
 

In the evening, we headed out once again to catch another illumination event.  In Japan, Christmas lights are referred to as "illuminations."  They can be very elaborate.  Below is Fukuoka Tower, a triangular shaped tower that has a Christmas tree in lights folded along one edge.  It looked great!

Day 3 - Sunday, 11/25:

For our last day, we didn't make many plans but the highlight was to be a visit to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.  We had good timing and my friend found a special Ghibli exhibition being held there.  On exhibit were original drawings and other sketches for all Ghibli films for the last 50 years.  It was amazing to see the original pencil sketches, eraser marks, and level of detail in some of the images before they were animated for movies.  There were so many more movies than I'd heard of and it made me want to go on a Ghibli movie watching spree.  I bought a few prints here to hang in my apartment back home.

We ate lunch at a small Indian restaurant that served humongous naan bread.  Indian food in Japan has been great at all the places I've visited.

We were joined by another hostel visitor (a traveler from Australia) and we introduced her to the wonder of a cat cafe.  I'm always up for playing with cute kitties, we had time to kill before our flight, so we figured might as well check one out.  There was this one super cute black kitten that I wanted to take home!  He just started sleeping as I held him - it was adorable.  I might need to find a black cat to adopt when I return.... 

He's a bit hard to see, I know, because I was wearing a black shirt - but I loved how pure black he was!

We headed off to the airport a bit after and acquired some souvenirs for our co-workers.  I found some awesome raspberry popcorn and some sweet potato kit-kats; flavors in Japan are so unique, huh?  Both tasted delicious.

On a side note, I had another friend visiting Kagoshima (a volcanic area near Fukuoka) on the same weekend.  He sent me the below picture - apparently the volcano erupted while he was visiting... what timing, eh?  Luckily he wasn't hurt - only effect was flights which were cancelled left and right.  He almost had to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) the whole way back before he finally found a flight in another carrier.

Real-time - Kagoshima Volcano eruption

By Monday, the weather had started to turn sour and we were hit with a heavy rainstorm.  The Kanto area near Tokyo was especially affected with high winds and there was a lot of concern on our flight home.  Our flight was delayed and was almost directed to a different airport... which would have been a huge problem!  Trains stop running around midnight and depending on the airport I arrived in, I might not have been able to get home on the necessary trains if my plane went to a different airport.  Thankfully the airline let us lift off in time, but we had heavy turbulence - seriously the plane was rocking and kicking up so much!  I was really worried if we'd make it in one piece.  Despite all the stress and potential disaster, we were able to land and I made my way home.  I was really flustered by then and almost got on the wrong train, before I quickly jumped off and got to the correct one.  Sigh, that was such a rush.  

And, as I mentioned before - my initial thoughts to weather at the beginning of the trip jinxed me for the return.  It was a full-blown typhoon by the time I got to my home train station.  I walked outside and was drenched immediately.  Umbrellas were worthless and I didn't even have one.  I instead had my rolling carry-on, a hooded jacket, and a 15 minute run home.  I really did run as much as I could to get home a.s.a.p.  I was still soaked and had to peel off all the layers in my entry way and unpack my bags quickly before water soaked through further.  A hot shower and change of clothes finally allowed me to really relax from the crazy weekend.  Somehow I think I always have stories about crazy traveling and weather here in Japan.... 

Links to all pics:   
Fukuoka, Day 1
Fukuoka, Day 2
Fukuoka, Day 3