So I headed to a cheap chain conveyor belt sushi restaurant, Genki Sushi, at the nearby Yodobashi Camera store (think Futureshop or Best Buy but multiple floors, more selection, and just overall better haha) to grab some quick lunch, then headed off to explore the city. Several travellers I had met before Fukuoka heavily recommended Fukuoka to me, so instead of mustering up the energy to do at least 1 day trip (all the interesting places in Kyushu were at least 2 hours away by train), I spent my entire 3 days in Fukuoka just enjoying what it had to offer.
I first walked to Canal City, a shopping complex that was supposed to have interesting architecture and shops, and a man-made canal running through it. After spending a minute trying to figure out where the entrance was (it was strangely difficult to locate one, and I'm not the only one who thought so), I finally got inside, and I have to agree, it was an interesting mall; definitely more interesting to me than the countless malls filled to the brim with fashion in Tokyo. It was like a mini-city, with the canal, 2 attached hotels, restaurants of all types, shops, a game centre, and a movie theatre. Then after spending a while wandering the mall, I navigated through the side and main streets with the tourist map (which by the way was so much better than the Tokyo maps), just soaking in the city as I made my way to the downtown core (and it didn't take that long despite just walking).
At Canal City. Some interesting architecture and strange colour scheme, like the half sphere design at one part of the mall. They had a surprisingly large amount of Halloween decorations up along the canal area(!); you can see some of them in the 5th photo (there were much more than that though). "Raumen Stadium" was a floor with restaurants specializing only in ramen, similar to the ramen floor at the mall in Kyoto, but I didn't go up there to eat. I stumbled upon some anime specialty shops (which I found out a week later is quite common in Japan) which I didn't expect to find (yes I know it's Japan); the last 2 photos are of an Ultraman store and of Pokemon Center Fukuoka (I never believed the Pokemon Centers actually existed!)!
An urban clothing store I walked pass after choosing a random exit of the mall. I saw a surprising number of urban stores while in Japan (mainly the big cities), all with rather obvious (to us North Americans) and amusing names. This one was "Dope" haha.
I accidentally found Kushida Shrine outside of Canal City. There was a kakiyama (a portable shrine float) on display there (the 2nd photo) that takes part in the yearly Fukuoka festival of Hakata Gion Yamakasa, where floats are built (weighing a ton) and raced by their carriers.
Along Kawabata shopping arcade, a traditional style shopping arcade. I found another kakiyama on display hidden off the main path.
At the other end of the shopping arcade, I found some interesting buildings, mainly the mall peculiarly titled "Eeny Meeny Miny Mo" and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (which looked like more of a Japanese monster museum based on the outside display).
The Former Prefectural Guest House. It was such a contrast to be walking along tall buildings and suddenly have a old Western-styled house standing there among a collection of trees. I'm not sure of the significance; I didn't pay to go inside.
At ACROS Fukuoka, a famous modern building known for it's "green roof," giving its other name of "Green Building." The side facing the street looks like a normal office building, while the side facing the adjacent Tenjin Central Park (which was nothing special) reveals 15 steps, and obviously more interesting, the 14 floors of terraced roofs that supposedly holds 35,000 plants. There's a free observation deck at the top, but it was closed on weekdays, so instead I walked up the 13 floors along the path that leads through all the greenery (there was a lot) to the 2nd highest floor. It was still a great view.
Making my way to the core of Fukuoka, the Tenjin district. With the Seattle's Best Coffee in the backdrop and the flowers lining the narrow street, this particular street looked like something out of an upscale American downtown street (minus all the Japanese signs).
Fukuoka Station, marking the heart of the Tenjin core - the area is home to 2 subway stations (going north-south and east-west), one of Fukuoka's 2 main bus centers, an underground shopping arcade, a few banks, and all the major department stores (offering plenty of shopping options). You can see the sky was already getting quite grey...
Inside Tenjin Underground, the 600m long underground shopping arcade with stone-paved floors and arabesque-styled ceilings...and of course, filled with lots of people.
Daimyo Catholic Church (the white building in the middle with the statue of a saint on the side)...doesn't look like your typical Catholic church.
In the Daimyo area, a district of Fukuoka that is supposedly popular among the fashion-conscious youngsters and supposedly home to many stylish cafes, records shops, bars, salons, etc. I didn't see any of that (save for a few pricey looking restaurants); the most interesting thing I was was the "New Used Clothing" store (far right in the photo)...how is used clothing ever new?
Passing by Maizuru-koen, along Meiji-dori, on my way to the Fukuoka Castle Ruins. The lily pads (or whatever those plants are) grew so thick and dense there that I only knew there was a pond there based on the tourist map...yeah that's right, there's a pond there.
Making my way through the very quiet (at least when I was there) Maizuru-koen.
At the Fukuoka Castle Ruins, with a great view of the west side of Fukuoka at sunset - the sun reflecting off the large pond of the neighbouring Ohori-koen, the dying sunlight in the dark blue sky, and great western Fukuoka skyline (nicer than the eastern Fukuoka skyline in my opinion), which includes the city's more notable structures like the Fukuoka Tower (far right in the 2nd photo) and the Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome (far right in the 3rd photo). The ruins weren't much; just a few walls left standing.
Since the night was setting in, I made my way up to Nagahama yatai street, the street in Fukuoka with the highest number of yatai (Japanese food stalls), all selling ramen (though you can sometimes find other dishes at a yatai). Eating ramen at a yatai was rated as a "must try," so I tried, and it was decent food (not what you'd expect from a portable stall formed mainly of discarded wood boards). And surprisingly, despite the worn and often dirty appearance, I had no digestive issues the following day (even when they're dirty, the Japanese are still cleaner than the Chinese hahaha)! Simple meal at a simple price, complimented with friendly, talkative cooks (which yatai are known for). Despite language barriers, me and the 2 cooks still managed to talk a bit, and they even let me add my name to the list of people who had eaten there! You can see the entire street is just lined with these stalls.
I passed by a FamilyMart convenie while walking back to the Tenjin area, and I initially stopped in for my daily vegetable juice (which is mainly how I got my daily source of vegetables while in Japan) when I spotted what looked like a filet-o-fish type sandwich. I'd never seen it at another convenie before, and like I said above, the ramen was a simple meal at the stall, so I had to try it...turns out it was almost identical, if not better tasting (nicer quality buns, more fish, not as much tartar sauce), than the McD's version.
Along Oyafuko-dori, where most of the clubs, bars, and international pubs are located in Fukuoka. I was expecting something like King St W or Richmond St...I should've known better haha. The clubs and bars are generally stacked up in small buildings, so you have to look at the signs to find the place you want to go, not like in Toronto where they're all out on the street. And there was another yatai; they're found all over Fukuoka.
I walked back to the Tenjin area with all the malls, and found an abundance of game centres along one of the side street, so of course I had to spend some time playing some UFO catcher games. You can see from the 3rd photo that he Japanese are serious about their gaming. For only 100 yen (around $1.20 CDN), I won all those Kit-Kat bars in one game (because whoever stacked it made it too easy to win)! I think they're Asia region-exclusive flavours; the white bars (in blue box) was lemon flavoured (I was expecting white chocolate, so it was a refreshing surprise), and the green bars (in the white box) were lime/citrus flavoured. I was not expecting the green coloured, but the flavours complemented the wafers pretty well.
Some shots of the city at night as I made my way over to Nakasu, Kyushu's largest red-light district. The small river I crossed (in the 2nd and 3rd photos) is the Naka-gawa, and as you can tell, there were quite a few yatai lined up along the river...again, they were everywhere in the city.
In Nakasu. It just so happened that the annual Nakasu Matsuri (Festival) was being held in Fukuoka while I was there, which I didn't even know about until noticing the large crowds when I entered the Nakasu area. Lots of people, endless stalls selling various foods and beer lining the main street where the festival took place, and singing, dances and other performances amid all the pachinko parlours, hostess bars and girl clubs made for fun times in a lively atmosphere. I wonder what was going on inside the Yes Building (in the 1st photo) haha. The 2nd last photo is of a typical building you'd find in any Japanese red-light district - the walls covered with illuminated signs from clubs trying to showcase the girls in their clubs; it was pretty amusing watching 2 foreigners in the lobby (the guys standing in the photo) trying to get into one of the clubs (generally the places accept locals only, unless you're in Tokyo, where they're major tourist traps). And after briefly watching a few of the public performances, I finally walked all the way back to the hostel.
The next day, I awoke to grey skies and pouring rain. There was also a light breeze which made the standard-sized Japanese umbrella even less effective for me than it had been in Nagasaki. Despite the rain being a major inconvenience, I couldn't let it stop me from doing some sightseeing, so I headed out, strapped with my rugged camera and the typical clear plastic Japanese umbrella. Since it was raining, I figured it would be pretty smart to stay indoors as much as possible, so decided to first visit Hawks Town - home to Fukuoka's pro baseball team, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, which included the Hawks Town Mall and the Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome. I had to take the bus because it was all the way on the far west side of town (in the Momochihama area) and the hostel was on the far east side, and who wants to unnecessarily walk for an hour in the rain? The bus took the highway that ran through north part of the city, which was an interesting thing to observe (since I hadn't been on a highway in Japan yet)...it had the tall barriers on the sides like you find on most highways in Asia that run through a city (or at least in Hong Kong and China) and smooth roads and clear, well placed signs (of course putting Toronto to shame again haha). The Hawks Town Mall was huge with open-air courts, large stores(!) that didn't just all sell clothes, big restaurants (there was a Hard Rock Cafe!), of course a Starbucks, game centres, and even an indoor sporting centre - all spanning over 2 buildings of only 2 floors each...its design and layout reminded me of shopping malls in Florida (especially because of the open-air courts and banisters of the 2nd floor). It was surprisingly empty though for such a big mall...I'm guessing the heavy rain was a major deterrent.
Some photos of Hawks Town Mall. The Futsal Stadium is the huge indoor sporting area (it was empty when I was there). I decided not to get closer to the baseball stadium, since it was an unsheltered walk, and it was closed anyway. And I was really surprised to see a Toys'R'Us there! So of course I had to take a look inside...obviously pretty standardized, except for a section that was completely covered with gashapon (capsule toys) machines since they're very popular toys in Japan. Keep in mind that I hadn't really kept in contact much with what was going on in Canada since I had left in July, so the black Wii and new slim PS3 were interesting to me at that moment.
The high-class JAL Resort Sea Hawk Hotel located next to the baseball stadium; I thought the design was very interesting.
Instead of waiting for the next bus, I decided to walk in the rain to TNC building, which housed Robosquare, a robot museum of sorts that the hostel recommended. I was greatly disappointed though when I got there; I might have been affected by the 15 minute walk in the rain that mainly involved me trying to prevent the rain from getting my camera wet (it looked like a short distance on the map, and it would've been a pleasant walk if not for the rain). I thought there would be all these cool exhibits, but it was just one floor in a section no bigger than your standard privately-owned clothing store. The more interesting displays were just the front display and the window displays, which I took photos of; the rest with just small tables where school kids (there were lots) could play with toys that use some form of robotics (so common everyday moving toys, nothing special) and a souvenir/toy shop...yeah, not too interesting. I was out of there after 5 minutes.
The rain had died down a bit, so I decided to take a look at the Fukuoka Tower (and then the Seaside Momochi Park), since it was directly beside the TNC building and I had already made the trip here. I didn't go up the tower...it cost money, and how great could the view possibly be with so much rain?
At the Seaside Momochi Park - the popular man-made beach and boardwalk of Fukuoka. Unfortunately, because of the rain (damn that rain) it wasn't exactly the most happening place that day, as you can tell. The cluster of buildings in the back in the 1st photo is the Marizon complex, which has the ferry terminal that serves South Korea (there are lots of Koreans and English teachers working in Korea that come to Fukuoka for vacation), China, and the tiny nearby island that houses a marine world-type complex. Understandably, I was the only person on the beach when I was there! The Big Banana(!) snack shop looked interesting...if it had been open. And you can see in the 4th photo that the view from the top of Fukuoka Tower would've been terrible that day.
With the rain not letting up for the rest of the day, I took the bus back from the beach to the Tenjin area. I spent the rest of the afternoon perusing the malls, spending an hour or so listening to music at the Tower Records there (including some J-pop...let's just say not my thing haha), and (again) enjoying the UFO catcher games that the game centres had to offer. I had read and heard about an American-style diner in the Tenjin area called Pik's Coffee Shop, and wanted to try it just to see what spins the Japanese might put on it, but despite directions from the hostel staff and reading the Lonely Planet guidebook, I couldn't find it. So I gave up my search and decided to try and find a ramen restaurant in Tenjin called Ichiran Ramen, that was supposed to have the best ramen in Kyushu, and a unique ordering system that allowed you to completely customize you ramen all the way down to the salt content in the broth! It was recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook, but I had no luck at all finding it. If I haven't said it before, the Lonely Planet guidebook maps and directions are horrendous (at least for their Japan book) - I'd highly suggest grabbing another guide if you go to Japan. Instead, there was a cheap fast service ramen shop at the spot the Lonely Planet map indicated, so I grabbed a quick bowl there (it definitely was not Ichiran Ramen...it was an order by ticket machine place). It was a really small serving, so I ended up going to the basement food court area of one of the malls, where I found a restaurant that served ramen and other dishes for decent prices. I still had a taste for ramen, so I went in, but ended up ordering champon, which was loaded for the price and very filling!
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