Anniversary Trip: Fukuoka (Day One)

For our anniversary this year, we decided to go to Fukuoka, a city located in Kyushu. We left Saturday night on a night bus, and after a really uncomfortable ride on the "relax" bus, we dropped off our bags at our hotel and headed out to explore.

Climbing Buddhas and Hakata JR Station

From Hakata station, we headed to Sumiyoshi Shrine. It was a nice shrine tucked away in the woods.

Map of the Shrine

Fish for your fortune!

From the shrine we headed to Rakusuien Garden. This garden is named after a merchant who helped with the development of Fukuoka City.

The clay walls are made from burnt rocks and roof tiles recovered after war

We couldn't resist feeding the Koi for 50 yen. They came right up to us even before we fed them!

After feeding the koi, we had Japanese matcha (traditional green tea) with wagashi (Japanese confections). My little flower sweet was pink, and Chad's was blue. The flowers were hard, with a taste similar to the decorative sugar shapes we put on cakes in the states, while the little triangles had a softer texture and a more subtle sweetness. It was nice to relax and look at the garden for a while before moving on to a huge shopping center called the Canal.

The Canal is like most malls, complete with shops, souvenirs and restaurants. However, there were a couple things that made the Canal shopping experience stand out for us. Firstly, this souvenir:

In Japan, even unchi, or poo, is cute. And it can encase candy. Yum!

Secondly, the Raumen Stadium:

So many choices!

Hakata is famous for ramen. There were lots of shops in the stadium, but after long consideration we were finally able to make up our minds and try our first bowl of the trip:

Pretty good!

From there, we waddled our full bellies over to Kushida Shrine, the Hakata Machiya Folk Museum and Tochoji Temple. At the shrine we chose fortunes, and both of us got "Moderately Lucky" (though, truth be told, they sounded like they weren't lucky at all. But hey, they're not really real...are they?). We couldn't take pictures at Tochoji Temple, which was unfortunate because it houses a huge wooden Buddha, but here are a couple pictures from outside the folk museum:

Teru Teru Bozu for keeping the rain away

A post box nestled in a small alley

After all that sightseeing, we were pretty ready to shower up and take a nap. Once refreshed, we headed out to explore the city. We decided to go to an Okinawan restaurant for dinner.

We tried garlic chicken and cheesy taco rice. Then we had salty chinsuko (a type of Okinawan cookie) ice cream for dessert! Forgive the first two pictures, everything looked too yummy to take a picture of before trying!

After dinner, it was off to bed before day two: a trip to Nokonoshima Island!