Fukuoka Trip: Day 2

On the second day of our trip it was supposed to be rainy, but we got super lucky with sunshine all day! We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go to a little island called Nokonoshima. First we took a 30-40 minute bus ride to get from Hakata to the ferry terminal, and then we hopped on the ferry (about 400 yen round trip).

Riding the ferry reminded us of our honeymoon in northern Michigan, and of Mackinac Island!

When we got to the island, it was very quiet without much happening and without many people. There were little shops near the ferry terminal, and a bus waiting to take tourists up to a flower park. We were a bit tired of riding bus, and we didn't want to pay 1000 yen to see the flower garden, so we decided to rent bicycles. After all, Nokonoshima is only about 5 miles round, and we biked around Mackinac Island (about twice the size) no problem. It would be fun...wouldn't it?

Turns out, the trails on Nokonoshima are almost all uphill. I don't know how it's possible--even when we were circling back, we went uphill the majority of the time. I'm not joking. Steep, steep hills for about 2 1/2 hours. We did have about a 10 minute respite of downhill on the way back, but that was it. Phew! I'm getting tired just remembering it.

We were also able to take a rest at a beach on the island. I was so excited--it had been a long time since we'd been to the beach to swim, and we've been so homesick for Michigan beaches!

From a distance, it looks quite beautiful! Unfortunately, the water was extremely dirty, but we made the most of it. One surprise for me was the taste of salt! I'd never swam in salt-water before, and it was pretty strange! (...and gross.)

To use the facilities, we would have had to pay 1000 yen (eek! They really try and get as much money as they can on this lonely little island!), so we decided to skip bathrooms and --as covertly as possible-- change right on the beach. It was a successful, albeit tricky, job.

There were gold flecks in the sand!

After hanging out at the beach, we finished our loop around the island. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore (I was getting sunburned despite sunscreen, and we were both super tired from all that climbing up and up), I spotted a pretty butterfly and was cheered up a bit.


When our hike was finally complete, we returned our bikes and headed to this lone cafe:



I loved the colors and the eccentric style of this cafe. We ordered Orange Floats with the Nokonoshima brand orange soda and orange sherbet. For 350 yen per float, it was a nice way to relax after all that work! Very yummy.




We had a good rest at the cafe, and caught the next ferry back to Fukuoka. It started to rain when we got back (we were so lucky it didn't rain earlier!), so we went shopping for a while and waited for the yatai, or street stalls, to open up and down the streets.


Fukuoka is famous for yatai, so we were sure to sample food from a couple of them. After that, we headed to Ippudo, a well-known restaurant selling Hakata ramen.

What a delicious meal after such a long --but good!-- day. I had the basic Hakata ramen (top), and Chad tried a spicier version. Both were soooo good. With full bellies and tired legs, we decided to call it a night.

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!

Tokyo: Day Three

Finally! It's here! Day three of our Tokyo trip...back in May. We've been super busy, and that's going to continue for a while, but I'll try my best to post some more fun from the last few months.

I feel like we did a lot of really cool things when we were in Tokyo, but day three might just have been my favorite. We started the day walking to the train station to head to Ebisu, and came upon this sculpture. It's famous, and often used in T.V. dramas.

When we got to Ebisu, we stored our luggage in some coin lockers and headed to the Yebisu Beer Museum. The museum was pretty nice, but unlike the Asahi Brewery Tour in Nagoya, you have to pay for a guided tour and there is a 400 yen charge per beer "sample." Below you can see pictures from the museum, the tasting room, and the tokens used to purchase the samples.

As you can see Chad was pretty happy (especially in the middle picture on the left where he's being cradled by the Yebisu logo).

After a refreshing Irish Cream Stout from the beer museum, we left for Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo Bay. The island has a lot of shopping and many restaurants, as well as a great night view. One of the first things I saw after getting out of the driverless, computer-operated train connecting the island to Tokyo was the Statue of Liberty. Kind of strange we haven't been to New York to see the real one, but there we were, in Japan, looking at this:

We wandered around a bit before finding a yummy pizza restaurant in Decks, a shopping mall with a view of the Rainbow Bridge from outside many of the restaurants and shops.

Kanpai! Sangria and beer--Cheers!

Top-view of my sangria, a Basil Mozzarella pizza, and a Carbonara pizza. Can you see the egg on the Carbonara pizza in the middle? In the bottom picture, the waiter is popping the egg and scrambling it over the whole pizza. The pizza is served piping hot, so the egg cooks immediately. It's actually really delicious!

Lovely salad.

After our late lunch we explored Decks a little more, finding a place where you can practice to be a Ninja Warrior, and a neat floor completely made to look like it's from the 1950's. This floor was probably my favorite part of going to Odaiba because I really love everything about that time period.

1. Check out the "penny" candy store, with old-fashioned treats
ranging in prices all below 100 yen.
2. Canned sodas with vintage designs
3. A general shot of the area
4. Chad and Yasu battling it out, playing an old arcade game

There was also a haunted house, a screen showing old-time cartoons, palm readers, and several souvenir shops. There were both fortune tellers reading palms and electronic ones, like the one pictured below:

(You put your hand in its mouth)

There were also fortune machines. Yasu seemed to be having bad luck over the trip when it came to drawing positive messages from fortunes, so he tried this one:

It totally reminded me of Zoltar in the movie "Big." Yasu put in money, and the dragon pulled out his fortune, did a dance, and then dropped it for Yasu to retrieve. It was cool to watch, but Yasu read his fortune only to find out it hadn't changed!

On the bright side to Yasu's fortune troubles, when we left the 1950's floor, we got to see this great view of the Rainbow Bridge:

Made us miss Mackinac!

It was getting late and we still had to pick up our luggage from Ebisu before catching our night bus, so we decided to head back. When we got to Yebisu, we decided to grab dinner at a ramen restaurant called Chabuton. We were intrigued by the sign on the door advertising "Veggie Ramen." Isn't that ramen blasphemy? We decided to check it out--little did we know that some REALLY amazing ramen awaited us!

Dinner is served! Beer, gyoza, and--for me!--Veggie Ramen.

Chad was jealous of my Veggie Ramen, and no one can blame him. I ordered the egg, but the basic ramen doesn't include it. This was seriously the best ramen I've ever tried. So vegetable-rich, and so yummy! We were sure to ask the ramen chef for details: was there really absolutely NO meat involved? Even in the broth? Why haven't more ramen shops started serving Veggie Glory?

His answers? Yes, the ramen has no meat, even in the broth. It's a vegetable broth, and the ramen recipe took over 10 years for the restaurant to perfect (which may be why other restaurants haven't started serving it. Or it might be because people don't believe in ramen without meat).

I left feeling like I had made a huge discovery, only to leave it behind...possibly for all time. But wait! The restaurant is a chain! And it is not only located in Ebisu, but very near to our company's headquarters in Kanayama! Hurray! Accessible Chabuton! I don't know what could have made a better ending to our Tokyo trip.

(Well... actually, a shinkansen ride would have been nice instead of the night bus, but you get the point.)

Three Days in Tokyo

We've been busy little bees, flitting from one job to the next and trying to fit in little trips in the meantime. Sorry for the delay in posting, but I hope this post -- the first in a series of three on our trip to Tokyo -- eases any feelings of bitterness/anger/depression you may have been feeling. Because I know how important reading this must be to most of you ;-)

DAY ONE

Chad, Yasu and I took a night bus to Shinjuku and arrived at about 5:30 AM. That's right, 5:30. You probably remember what a chipper morning person I can be, so I'm sure you can imagine how (un)happy Yasu and Chad were as I forged into the city in search of coffee. Luckily it didn't take too long to find a cafe where we could eat breakfast and hang out for a couple hours while we waited for things to open up. We were also lucky that it was such a beautiful day and that we were surrounded by interesting buildings like this one:

After breakfast, we left to drop off our stuff at The Washington Hotel.

After stopping at the hotel, we were off to Harajuku -- making a quick stop at Meiji Shrine first. It was really tough to pick only a few pictures of Harajuku, but here is a peek at some of what we saw in the famous city:

It was super crowded, and mostly with teenage girls! There were some interesting sights (and people!), but my favorite part of Harajuku was a little restaurant tucked away called Blue Garden.

(Left to Right)
1. Chad and Yasu thinking about where to go after lunch
2. Salad from an awesome salad bar, and a 100 yen beer (about $1.00 USD)!
3. Pizza-in-a-Cup
4. Cool guys
5 & 6. Carubonara Raisu in a stone bowl (it continued cooking after it was brought to the table!)
7 & 8. Chad's Curry Rice dish -- so yummy!
9. Eating fondue
10. Yeah, did I mention fondue in #9? Because it was part of the salad bar. And it was amazing.
11. Once again, amazing.
12. Flowers to celebrate the restaurant's recent opening

After a really wonderful lunch, we headed to Yoyogi Park. We got to see some pretty interesting people around every corner, including dancing Elvises (Elvi?).

Pretty sure this was a man...

We thought this girl's look was pretty impressive:

This guy was a mime-rabbit:

And these guys were the two most interesting people in the park that day!

We had been walking for hours and it was quite hot, so we headed back for a nap and a shower (finally!) at our hotel. After a brief respite from Tokyo-overload, we headed out for a little shopping and dinner. Sorry to report that I've forgotten the name of the ramen restaurant we went to and where is is exactly, but I feel like you can still take some time to drool over its glory. Chad's ramen is pictured on the left in the middle, and he says it was the spiciest ramen he's ever eaten (see his picture directly below the ramen--he's sweating!). I ordered salt and butter ramen (pictured on the right in the middle). So healthy! ;-)

And so came the end of our first day. There was so much to take in, we couldn't imagine what lay in store for us on day two. Can you? We'll be posting soon to let you know!