Fukuoka – Where to, Gumshoe?

Fukuoka (Day 38): Change of Plans

April 7, 2016

We didn’t fall asleep until around 2am last night so this morning we woke up around 10:30am. We still planned on going to Nagasaki, despite sleeping in, but were going to catch a later train. After getting everything together, we left the hotel for Tenjin Station to catch the subway to Hakata Station (where the Japan Rail Station is).

Before our trip, we bought a 14 day Japan Rail Pass (JR pass) from the JTB office in the basement of Hotel Vancouver for $558 CAD each. The JR pass is offered to foreigners traveling into Japan, where you can pay a set price for unlimited train rides. The pass is offered at a significant discount and must be bought before coming to Japan. You have to show your passport to prove that you are visiting Japan as a temporary visitor and not on any work visa.

When got to the JR office at Hakata Station, there was a long line up for the JR pass. There were probably over 50 people ahead of us and we only had about an hour until the 12:55pm train we were planning on taking to Nagasaki departed. The line up didn’t seem to move at all for the first 15 minutes, but then they started opening more wickets and the line up moved a bit faster. We had to bring the papers we got from the JTB office in Vancouver as well as our passport to redeem our JR pass. The lady checked our passports to see that the sticker (Japan doesn’t stamp passports) said temporary visitor. At this point, we could also reserve seats for trains that we knew we were going to take in the next few days.

After the lady processed our JR pass, she told us that the train we were hoping to catch to Nagasaki was cancelled due to severe rain. The forecast for today was rain but we didn’t realize how heavy it started to rain because we had been indoors most of the morning. She said the next train would be 1:55pm, which didn’t really work out for us because the main point of going to Nagasaki was to visit the Atomic Bomb Museum and it closed at 5pm. We decided to change our plans and stay in Fukuoka since the weather was bad. Now we know that the JR pass line ups can get really busy, so we should make sure if we need to reserve any tickets from now on we should make arrangements the day before if possible.

Although it would have been nice to see Nagasaki, I was also glad we could just stay in Fukuoka and take it easy. I was behind on blog posts and we needed to do a bit more Japan planning and research on things (plus I’ve been a bit tired trying to fight off a cold). I think one of the biggest things that I have to get over is that we won’t be able to see everything, eat all the “must eats”, or buy all the things I would have bought on a normal trip. I’m used to short trips and I know if we travel the way I would on a two week trip, we’ll burn out quickly and I could already feel it a bit.

So I suppose the train getting cancelled is a blessing in disguise. We headed to the other famous Fukuoka ramen place called, Ichiran, for lunch. There is a location attached to the Hakata train station, which was perfect. When you get there, you have to use a machine to pay for your order and it prints out a ticket. Once you’re seated you give the waitress your ticket and your food comes. It was a neat yet very anti-social process and eating experience (Tim: the ticket machines are pretty common throughout Japan).

And the winner between Ichiran and Ippudo is (in our opinion) Ippudo! Ichiran is very good too but their meat was the weakest link, it wasn’t that tender and it was sliced very thin. Ichiran is also just over 100 JPY more expensive and they charge for kikurage mushrooms that are already included in Ippudo’s bowl. Although the Ichiran experience is novel, I enjoyed my bowl of Ippudo ramen more.

After we finished eating, we went outside and it was raining very hard. We decided to go back into the station mall and buy an umbrella. Japanese people all carry clear umbrellas here, so we thought we’d join in. We found a store that was relatively cheap in the basement and sold an umbrella for 410 JPY = $5 CAD (Tim: More expensive than what I remember umbrellas going for the last time I was in Japan in 2009). Despite having waterproof rain jackets, this type of rain needed an umbrella and I also had my laptop in my backpack today (I was planning on writing while on the train).

We decided to have a leisurely walk back to our hotel from the train station, but first stopping by Hakata’s Canal City Mall. Since it was pouring, the best place to be is inside a mall. The Canal City Mall is the mid-way point between Hakata and Tenjin Station (where our hotel is). Once we arrived, I was excited to browse around at Uniqlo and Muji, stores that I’ve been in many times but never in Japan!

As expected, Uniqlo is about 20% cheaper than what it is in Taiwan and Muji is also slightly cheaper. While browsing through Uniqlo, there are a lot of things I would like to buy but I don’t have any room in my luggage. They’re clothes I would want to have when I get back to Vancouver, not necessarily clothes I need on this trip. I’ve made notes to myself that I would like to go back to Seoul and Japan just to shop in the future and I’ll bring an empty suitcase (Tim: because clothing is so different around the world it necessitates travelling across an ocean to get what you need…).

Every hour the canal in the mall has a water show. We caught half of one that was happening at 4pm. The water show was choreographed to”Be Our Guest” from The Beauty at the Beast. The show was better than the one we waited for in the cold in Seoul at the Danpo Bridge (Tim: I decided it was better within the first 5 seconds).

We headed back to Tenjin Station and figured we would have an early dinner and just go back to the hotel. It was such a wet day out that we thought once we got back inside we wouldn’t want to go back out again.

Tenjin Station has a large underground mall that connects all the department stores to office buildings, City Hall and the subway station. We’ve been to a lot of underground malls in Seoul, but this one was a lot nicer. The stores were mainly Japanese clothing stores along with a lot of French bakeries. I noticed that a lot of Japanese stores are named in French, although some spelled incorrectly. (Tim: is “Flench” the equivalent to “Engrish”?)

After going through part of the mall, we left to go find something for dinner. It started to get very stuffy inside and I think the dim lights and being underground made me feel a bit uneasy. I find that in Korea and Japan, when it’s a bit colder outside (it wasn’t actually that cold today at 18 degrees) they blast the heat inside too much. So whenever we went inside a mall or department store, Tim and I would be sweating.

We went to one of the shopping plazas connected to the underground mall and found that on their basement level there were several restaurants that looked quite good. We picked one called, Kisuimaru. Tim ordered their chirashi don (Tim: they called it Kisui-don) and I had a dinner set.

At first we were hesitant because it wasn’t that busy (but I guess it was only 5:15pm after all), but the food was good. When we were finishing up, more people (what seemed like locals) started to come in. I feel like we won’t have any horrible dining experiences in Japan (*knock on wood*).

We came back to the hotel after dinner and caught up on our blogging and did some more research on the town we’ll be going to tomorrow, Beppu (the onsen capital of Japan). Our wedding videographer, Henry, just went to Japan for a bit and told us the whole town is steaming, sounds pretty cool to me!

Our train tomorrow is at 9:21am, so we’ll get a good night sleep tonight!

Steps today: 14,600

Fukuoka (Day 37): Japanese Baseball (Go Hawks!)

April 6, 2016

Today was our first full day in Fukuoka and we were ready to explore the city. The weather was overcast and about 18 degrees celsius, which was perfect weather for walking around. After having ramen last night, the next thing we wanted to have was obviously sushi. One of the first restaurants (highly rated on Trip Advisor) to come up when I Google searched was “Chikae Fukuoka Shop”. Our plan for today was to go there for lunch and walk around the city – a pretty low key day.

Chikae Fukuoka Shop was about an 8 minute walk from our hotel. When we arrived at around 12:30pm, there was a long line up outside. The line was a mixed bag of businessmen in black suits, older Japanese ladies and a few tourists (we seemed like the only North American tourists – most were Korean or from Hong Kong). The line up went fairly quickly and we were in the restaurant in less than 15 minutes. The restaurant is quite large with fish tanks in the middle of the restaurant with counter seating around it as well as tables around the counters. We were lucky to get a seat at the counter so we had a good view of all the fish in the tanks.

At lunch, there were only two lunch sets on the menu, each for 1,400 JPY ($16.90 CAD) – we got one of each. While we ate, we noticed that some locals would order sashimi and the sushi chef would come out of the kitchen, grab the fish out of the tank and chop it up behind the counter and serve it. There are no prices for these fish that we could see, so we just stuck to the lunch sets.

After we finished lunch around 1:30pm, there was no longer a line up outside the restaurant, good to know if we ever come back in the future. We started to walk towards Maizuru Park, where the Fukuoka Castle ruins are. During the Edo Period (1603-1867), the Fukuoka Castle used to be the largest castle in Kyushu. It was subsequently torn down during the Meiji Restoration as it symbolized Japan’s feudal past. Today, it’s a park in the middle of the city with some view points and surrounded with cherry blossom trees. Since Fukuoka is in southern Japan, the cherry blossoms have already bloomed here and are now starting to fall and tree are sprouting green leaves. The views of the city were nice, as we looked to the left, we could see the Ohori Park lake, Fukuoka Tower and Fukuoka Dome – where we were heading later in the afternoon.

As we made our way towards Ohori Park, we passed by the Gokoku Shrine and took some pictures. The area was very quiet and peaceful. I really enjoyed having so many trees surrounding us during our walk – it felt really good to breathe in some fresher air.

Ohori Park was our main destination on our walk, it is Fukuoka’s main park in the centre of the city with a large pond and many small bridges. We sat down on a park bench facing the pond for a bit just to sit and relax. We noticed as we walked around the pond that many people were by themselves and looked like they were doing some self-reflection as well.

After our relaxing stroll around Ohori Park, we made our way to the Fukuoka Dome and Umi no nakamichi Sea Side Park. This walk took about 20 minutes through the city – passing by more canals.

When we got close to the Fukuoka Dome around 4:00pm, we noticed there were a lot of locals heading towards it. The Fukuoka Dome is home to the city’s baseball team, the SoftBank Hawks. We were excited because I had tried to look up a game schedule but their English website only showed their 2015 schedule so we thought we missed out. As baseball is Japan’s most popular sport, we were hoping to catch a game at some point. Once we made it to the top of the stairs, it definitely looked like game day! I read that the Hawks are one of the best teams in the league as they have won the league championship multiple times and are currently the reigning Nippon Professional Baseball League champs (two years running).

We went to the ticket counter and asked for the section in the outfield with the second cheapest seats – 1,000 JPY = $12 CAD. The most expensive tickets we saw on the price list were 60,000 JPY = $72 CAD. The lady at the ticketcounter told us “this section is very excited”, which meant to us that it was likely the team’s supporter section which sounded perfect to us!

We found out the game didn’t start until 6:00pm, but there were already so many people lined up at 4pm to get into the dome as the doors opened at 4:30pm. We decided to walk to Momochi Seaside Park (as planned) that was beside the stadium and come back a bit before the game started to grab food and walk around the concourse.

Momochi Seaside Park was nice to walk around on the “sea wall”. It seemed like this place would be a lot busier during the summer as there were a lot of businesses and shacks that weren’t open. The beach itself had a surprising number of teenagers just hanging out with their shoes off.

We made our way back to the stadium around 5pm and headed in. It turns out you can bring your own food in – which is why so many people had big backpacks and why Family Mart (a convenience store) inside the Hilton was crazy busy. We could’ve brought in our own food but at the same time we wanted to try “Japanese stadium food”. They had MOS Burger, bentos, takoyaki, ramen, and other American stadium food. The prices were typical of a stadium – about 30-40% more than what it would be outside.

We got to our seats and they were better than I expected for 1,000 JPY. We were right beside the main supporter section so every time the Hawks were up at bat, everyone would be standing but when the other team was batting, you could sit down. We got to our seats well before the game started and there were a lot of people already seated and enjoying the pre-game entertainment. The game was a lot of fun mostly due to the songs and chants they had for each player (my favourite was for Yuichi Honda). They would say a bunch of stuff in Japanese and then say the player’s last name repeatedly until they were done. This taught us (or just me) how to pronounce some of their last names properly. It was a lot of fun and it was probably the best $12 CAD we spent this whole trip.

Unfortunately the Hawks lost to the Chiba Lotte Marines 4-3, which is too bad because the Hawks pretty much dominated the game in terms of hits but they weren’t able to convert (they had the bases loaded three times). The Marines, on the other hand, hardly had any hits but got 3 home runs.

What I enjoyed the most wasn’t the baseball game but watching everyone around us having fun while supporting their home team. There wasn’t a “type” of Hawks fun, it was basically everyone (it seemed like everyone in Fukuoka was there) – young and old, men and women, from all walks of life and age (babies to people who look like they’re in their 80s). I find that at most live sporting events in North America, it’s mostly dominated by groups of men and you rarely see large groups of girls or women without any guys, but at this game there were a lot of groups of just women (and they didn’t look like “puck bunny” types).

I’m really happy we “stumbled” upon this game and we were lucky enough to have experienced a Japanese baseball game with some really die hard fans. If only Canucks games were as fun!

After the game was over, we walked back from the stadium to our hotel in about 30 minutes. We didn’t want to bother with going 3 stops on the subway since it was so busy – must have been close to 30,000 people in the stadium all trying to get home. On our way back, we stopped by Lawson’s (Japanese convenience store) to pick up some onigiris to eat as we weren’t that full from the food at the game.

We stayed up really late (until 2am) and decided to just play tomorrow by ear since our plan to go to Nagasaki early didn’t look like it was going to happen.

Steps today: 30,000

Seoul/Fukuoka (Day 36): Welcome to Japan!

April 5, 2016

Our flight to Fukuoka, Japan, was at 2:05pm from Incheon Airport. Instead of taking the airport bus that we had taken from Incheon into Seoul, we planned to take the airport express train (AREX) from Seoul Station. I had read about the AREX, but our hotel as well as other travel bloggers recommended taking the airport bus into the Myeongdong area because you didn’t have to transfer from the AREX to Seoul’s subway lines. But considering we were only one subway stop away from Seoul Station, the process was painless and the journey to the airport was a lot more enjoyable than the airport bus. The only issue I see with taking the subway to get to Seoul Station is that their subway stations have a lot of stairs and not many elevators or even escalators (which is probably why the hotel recommended the bus for most travellers with suitcases). Thank goodness (Tim: or thank practical packing and planning) we both have backpacks or it would have been a very painful walk through the stations.

Once we made it to Seoul Station, we went to buy our airport express tickets. Like Hong Kong Station, you can check into your flight and check in your luggage at the train station (such an awesome system). This is only available for Korean Air, Asiana and Jeju Airlines though. If you are flying on any of these three airlines you get a discount on your train ticket (6,900 KRW = $7.80 CAD instead of 8,000 KRW = $9.00 CAD). But another added perk of checking in at Seoul Station is that there’s also an immigration office which lets you bypass the regular line up when you arrive at Incheon! The other benefits of taking the AREX was that it was shorter than the bus ride by 30 minutes (40 minutes instead of 70 minutes) and there’s free wifi on the train.

Before leaving Seoul, we had our subway cards which had a balance of 800 KRW on it. Since we had gone farther away from our hotel yesterday, it messed with our cost per ride. We weren’t able to just add 200 KRW (a short ride is 1,250 KRW and we had 1,050 KRW balance) as the minimum deposit amount to your card is 1,000 KRW (it’s silly that they don’t let you add any amount you want) (Tim: even the Seoul Subway employee thought we could add 200KRW… he went to try at the machine, as we had already done, and realized he couldn’t). So long story short we both had 800 KRW on our card and didn’t want to get a refund (because there is a 500KRW fee to get the remaining balance refunded). You can use the subway card (“T Money” card) at participating stores and restaurants though (similar to a lot of cities). We ended up going to McDonald’s and each buying a chocolate dipped vanilla cone (for “breakfast”) for 800 KRW (yay!). Tim will have a more detailed blog post about this at some point.

We got to Incheon around 12pm and headed through security and to our gate. We still had to go through customs but we were able to go into a quicker line for both security and customs which was much quicker (Tim: the same line as pilots, flight attendants, etc). Korea has tax free shopping at their stores if you make a purchase of over 30,000 KRW. Since I bought a bunch of stuff from Missha, I had one receipt that qualified (that was stamped at the store). If you ever had to deal with getting your VAT tax back in Europe, getting your tax refund back in Korea is much easier. We found a tax free kiosk, the lady took my receipt, scanned the barcode, scanned my passport and my refund in cash was dispensed. I got back 3,500 KRW for a 57,000 KRW purchase (around 6%, you can get up to 8% depending on what you buy). If you have more expensive items, you need to have the items in your carry on to show them.

When we arrived at our gate, we noticed that it seemed like the average age of passengers flying to Fukuoka from Seoul was around 50 years old.

The flight to Fukuoka was only an hour and twenty minutes, so basically we were in the air for a bit less than an hour. I tried to write my blog post from yesterday on the plane but was only able to write a couple of paragraphs before they brought out a meal (chicken sandwich that wasn’t very appetizing, Tim thought it was tuna and said it was fine to him), cleaned up and then it was time to land.

Fukuoka is one of the closest Japanese cities to South Korea (there are ferries that go between Busan and Fukuoka), which has made it a popular destination for Koreans and Chinese tourists. To be honest, the first time I heard of Fukuoka was on our last trip to Asia, when we were at the Taipei airport and a flight just got in from Fukuoka. When I googled it, it seemed like an interesting, more laid back, Japanese city and it is the birth place of a lot of famous ramen restaurants such as Ippudo and Ichiran.

The Fukuoka airport is quite small. The international and domestic terminals are not connected, but there’s a free shuttle bus that goes between the two terminals. Once we got to the train station (which is at the domestic terminal), we bought our subway cards and loaded some Yen on to it and headed to our hotel.

We’re staying at Hotel MyStays Fukuoka Tenjin, which is about a 3 minute walk from Tenjin Station. The hotel’s location is very convenient – close to the train station as well as a lot of shopping and restaurants. The room itself is small but very clean. We booked this hotel through Expedia and are paying $56 CAD/night. Fukuoka is a lot cheaper than the rest of Japan!

Finally! It was time for our first meal in Japan. Since Fukuoka was our first stop, it was a no brainer that we were having ramen at Ippudo. Ippudo has many international locations, one being in New York City. Up until today, I had only been to the East Village location and thought the ramen was good but it was pricey – at around $16 USD (plus tax and tip) a bowl. The one in New York is a lot fancier with a lot of other menu options besides ramen. Tim’s been to Ippudo in Tokyo and has always said how it was the most amazing ramen he’s ever had (Tim: what I actually say is that I wasn’t the biggest fan of ramen until I tried Ippudo in Tokyo, but the first time I had Ippudo in Tokyo definitely put Ramen on the noodle soup map for me.).

The ramen was delicious and the servers were friendly and courteous. (I love Japan!) We’re not the biggest fans of Korean food in general (Tim: or I have certain body parts that aren’t the biggest fans of Korean food), so eating a bowl of ramen made us so glad we’re finally in Japan.

After dinner we walked around towards the river and canals. Fukuoka is filled with canals and open air food stalls called a “yatais”. I read that yatais were very popular in Japan historically but now they only really exist in Fukuoka. We passed by a row of them but since we had just eaten, we just looked. Most of them served either yakitori (grilled skewers), oden (boiled items), or ramen.

Fukuoka seems to be a very laid back and calm city and is apparently a stark comparison to Tokyo (it’s a nice change of pace from Seoul as well). It’s my first time in Japan and I’m really excited to discover more of it. I love Japanese food and can’t wait to eat my way through Japan (and prepare to starve when we go to Australia) (Tim: we’re not going to starve). While walking through the streets and looking at the different sushi places, I had to stop myself from thinking, “Is this a good place? Are they actually Japanese?” like I would in Vancouver. Looking forward to our time in Japan!

Steps today: 16,000