Japan
Hakata-ekimae

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    • Day 7

      Fukuoka

      May 17, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      The Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Fukuoka was packed, I think everyone was getting out of Hiroshima before the G7 started. Luckily we had booked a seat this time and the trip was only an hour. Our Hotel is a short five minute walk from the station, It looks a lot classier than the last one, even has a full check in desk instead of a hole in the wall. We left our bags and headed off to find Hakata Old Town. There’s not much to it but it’s a nice quite street with older building and temples.

      It’s warming up the more we go south, you need to be out of the sun in the middle of the afternoon. We headed out again about 5ish to find the Yatai Food stalls. They are street stalls along the canals selling everything from Ramen to Barbecue. Passed through Canal City on the way which is a flash shopping centre, but it does have a musical water fountain display which was pretty entertaining.

      We found the food stalls but it was still pretty early so we wandered around for a while and then decided to have a drink somewhere first. Went into this deserted restaurant overlooking the canal and sat at the bar. So many staff in here and no customers. We sipped our beers watching three chefs get an assortment of food ready. We thought they were a bit premature because there was no one even walking pass this place.

      A gong must have sounded somewhere because suddenly people started appearing from all directions. It’s funny in restaurants because all the staff call out greeting whenever anyone arrives or leaves. So there was a chorus of greetings for the next half hour. We sat at the bar with the best seats in the house watching the chefs put together some amazing dishes. After they’d dished them out to the function we’d ask can we have some of that. They were very surprised at first, then they thought it was funny, then I think they loved that we wanted to try everything.

      It was a great night, like being invited onto the set of iron chef.
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    • Day 109

      Next Stop: Fukuoka

      March 23, 2018 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

      Next stop on our trip through Japan is Fukuoka. For us it is just a short stopover because we had to pick up our railpass here. For the next 7 days we will be traveling by rail. Starting with Hiroshima tomorrow morning.
      Nevertheless Fukuoka is a nice city as well. Here you can find some pictures from Fukuoka. Tonight we had a "traditional Japanese" dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe :D

      Der nächste Stop auf unserer Rundreise durch Japan ist heute Fukuoka. Für uns ist es eigentlich nur ein kurzer Zwischenstopp, weil wir hier heute unseren Japan Rail Pass abgeholt haben. Ab morgen geht es dann mit dem Shinkansen weiter nach Hiroshima.
      Aber auch Fukuoka an sich ist eine ganz nette Stadt, daher hier noch ein paar Bilder. Heute Abend hatten wir dann auch noch ein ganz "traditionelles japanisches Abendessen" im Hard Rock Cafe :D
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    • Day 14

      Fukuoka -Tag 1

      May 6, 2019 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

      Nach Hiroshima war unser eigentlich nächstes Ziel Naha gewesen. Wegen den Flugbedingungen haben wir uns aber dafür entschieden, einen Zwischenstop in Fukuoka einzulegen. Dort angekommen besuchten wir das Fukuoka City Museum, das gerade eine Ausstellung vom Ghibli Studio hatte. Anschliessend besuchten wir noch einen Bookoff Laden, wo ich mir ein paar CDs kaufte. Zum Abschluss gingen wir noch Curry essen (was ich zum Glück extra mild bestellen konnte!).

      First we wanted to go to Naha after Hiroshima, but because of the organization of the flight we decided to make a brief stop at Fukuoka. There we visited the Fukuoka City Museum that had an exhibition of the Ghibli Studio. After that we went to a Bookoff store, where I broughr some CDs. In the evebing we went for dinner and had some tasty Curry (lucky me, I cpuld order a extra mild one!).
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    • Day 23

      Fukuoka

      October 23, 2014 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

      Cesar, who I met in Seoul highly recommended Fukuoka so obviously I had to check it out. It was rated as one of the best places to live in Japan.

      Day 1:

      I took my first Shinkansen (bullet) train from Tokyo and it was amazing. It only took 5 hours to cover over 1,000 miles, I had WiFi, loads of leg room and it was so smooth. The trains are bang on time making it so easy to get around and work out where you're going. So different to China. Unfortunately for me I will have to use National Rail again when I get back to the UK ?

      When I arrived I met 3 guys who had just finished cycling all day. There was a Brit (Mike), Canadian (Tanner) and Korean (James). They offered me a beer and we got chatting about our trip so far and future plans. They were really nice guys and we decided to head out together for some food and drinks. I arrived late so there wasn't much else I could do.

      The owner of the hostel told us that there was an Oktoberfest going on in the park. We had to check this out. It was only 5 but this tent was rammed. I don't think the Japanese knew much about Oktoberfest but it was an excuse to have a few drinks. It was so much fun, there was a German band on stage, the usual sing a long, many "prosts" and a conga line. It turns out Tanner knows some Japanese. He claims he only learnt it 3 weeks prior to coming Japan but he was chatting away with some cool older guys behind us that were singing and dancing along and even invited us out for food. Then Tanner started chatting up a secretary we was sitting next to who was so shy.

      It was amazing to see the locals open up when a tourist can speak some broken Japanese. They were so friendly. I really wish I could speak a little Japanese as it would have been a very different experience.

      James apparently got to a semi final of a Korean drinking contest so Tanner bought him a half pint to down. This guy had nothing on my mate Dave but it was probably impressive for a Korean.

      We all had the munchies so headed to a yatai, basically a street food cart where you walk through a curtain and sit down. We pointed at a few things and the food was delicious which we washed down with some sake. Tanners Japanese was in full flow, I don't believe he had only been learning this for 3 weeks but it was impressive nonetheless and the locals were loving it. I was a little jealous. Maybe I'll have to learn some Japanese and comeback.

      Day 2:
      Not much to report. I basically rented a bike and cycled for 7 hours taking in the sites of the city. I sat on my first beech of the trip and wondered around this gorgeous park. But there weren't many attractions. This place comes alive at night but I couldn't afford to go out after Oktoberfest so had an early night to grab an early train the next day. Before going to bed I ate my first Sushi in Japan. It was one of those conveyer belt places. It was quite cool, you sit down and place your order on the touch screen above you and this Scalextric car zooms around and parks in front of you and you take your dish, press a button and it zooms back off to the chef. Each dish (2pcs) was less than a pound and much better than anything you would get in Wasabi.

      So not only will I be going back to shit trains in the UK I'll also be going back to bad sushi. Any jobs going in Japan?
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    • Day 45

      The Japanese story of the day

      September 15, 2016 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

      אז אכלתי את אחד הראמנים היותר טובים שלי היום.
      הראמן בא עם חתיכות חזיר, אז הוצאתי אותן לצלוחית קטנה בצד.
      אחרי שסיימתי לאכול, רץ אחרי אחד העובדים, ואמר משהו בסגנון,
      "אני מצטער שהחזיר לא היה מספיק טעים, סלח לנו, אנחנו נשתפר, קח בבקשה את הכסף שלך בחזרה כפיצוי"
      (כמובן שהסברתי לו שזה בסדר ולא אכלתי ממניעי צמחונות)

      וגם לפני יומיים היתה איזשהי בעיה עם המנעול בגסט האוס לחדר, אז הם העבירו אותי לחדר אחר, וכמובן שכפיצוי לא חייבו אותי על 2 לילות + הביאו לי בירה חינם.

      Japanese people sure know how to make customers happy.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Hakata-ekimae, 博多駅前

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