Fukuoka - Japan

Nice weekend away for Lunar New Year

So, despite landing from our epic trip along SE Asia on only the 3rd February, we had been bitten by the travel bug once more and started discussing where we'd like to go next. Funnily (and luckily) enough, the next 'holiday' was the following weekend. We were to have Monday 11th February off work, giving us a 3-day weekend.

Throughout our previous trip Roger had been gloating that he was going to visit Japan over the coming long weekend. So, fueled by jealousy, Winnie and I began searching for flights, deals or trips to spend the next weekend somewhere equally-super-cool. I actually found flights to Shanghai that fitted within the dates and within budget. We thought that this would have been an ideal place to spend the coming holiday weekend, which was Lunar New Year (called Chinese New Year by many). However upon research, I found that to go there we would need a visa, which was expensive and we had already passed the deadline.

My attentions turned to Japan and after searching for a few hours, I found some flights from Busan to Fukuoka, which lasted 35 MINUTES! So soon, after 4 1/2 days of desk-warming and 'teaching' children, we jetted off from Busan to Fukuoka. Actually, visiting Fukuoka interested me a lot because in April 2012, before I came to Korea, I was offered a job there. I turned it down in favour of Korea but I was interested to see what my life could have been like. I had also contacted Elizabeth and Hannah, two girls I had met in London when interviewing for the job. 

Soon after the seat-belt signs had been switched off on the Air Busan flight, they were back again as we began our descent into Japan. After landing and going through immigration, we found a taxi to take us to the hotel. What was to be the first thing we found quirky about Japan was, that when the taxi came to pick us up, the back door opened on it's own and inside was decorated with colourful ultra-violet lights.

The taxi took u on the 20 minute journey though town to the Takakura Hotel, one which Winnie had found. I was very impressed, it was modern, ornate and immaculate. After settling down in the room and resting for an hour, we went exploring the city in search of lights, culture and most importantly, FOOD! I found a Chicken restaurant that looked funky, despite the hanging chickens outside, so we went in there. Winnie had pasta and I ordered jerk chicken. The service was wonderful, the people were so nice, even more so than Korea. The food was very tasty but small as hell. Turns out it was some kind of Tapas restaurant. The rest of the short night was spent walking around staring at the bright lights, trying to keep out of the cold and taking nice pictures over the bridge. After that we returned to the hotel and crashed.

The next day looked to be pretty bright weather wise, so we woke and went in hunt of breakfast and coffee. We were so surprised at just how clean and fresh Japan was. I'd heard it was clean, but I didn't know it'd be THAT clean. The air was fresh, the pavements were clear and the infrastructure was organised. We walked into some kind of museum that had a bakery/cafe and had some tart and 3 refillable coffees :) then we headed to buy tickets for the city-tour bus. For all it's super-modern technology and astute organisation, we found it ridiculously difficult to find Wifi in Japan. Neither of us had been able to let our friends and family know that we'd made it safely to our fifth country in 3 weeks! We managed to find a small cafe that had a free iPad for use, so we used that to update Facebook and also contact Elizabeth to make plans for that night.

After drinking the coffee (that we had only bought so we could use the free wifi) we went to the City Hall to catch the tour bus. As it was an open-top bus, and the weather was cold, we were given some highly unflattering coats to keep us warm. It was like one of those stupid sleeping bag type ones that Arsne Wenger wears, but MAN it was warm. The tour took us around the city, over the bridge near Hakata harbor, past Yahoo Stadium and Fukuoka tower. Sitting on a bus for an hour not moving a muscle really took it out on us, so we went in search of food. Walking down a random street, I said "I can't find anything that I want to eat here", within 5 seconds a man came out of a restaurant and told us that we should go in there. We had warm soup and noodles and chicken and it tasted great. We learned that he owns a restaurant in London too and game me his card. The only creepy thing about this was, me and Winnie stuffed our faces and were feeling full and sleepy. As we left, the guy said "are you guys feeling sleepy?"... to which Winnie said "yes actually... wait... how do you know?!" - she remains convinced that we were given narcotics in the noodles haha.

We found our way to our second hotel (the Takakura couldn't have us for Saturday and Sunday night ) and we were significantly displeased with it. It was more than double the price of the first hotel but less than half as comfortable. But hey, we make the most of it. We had a quick nap then headed out to meet Liz. Liz tok us to an Izakaya style restaurant, which is a restaurant that serves smaller portions of food, but multiple dishes. It was delicious! Upon leaving, Liz said "get ready for the waitress following us", and literally, after we paid, the waitress followed us out for the door. Apparently it's common custom but I felt like she was trying to ensure that I left the building... flashbacks to nightclubs during my teens, haha.

We later met up with Hannah and some other people and headed to a bar, which looked like a British Pub. We met some foreigners and drank some beer. We had some good fun, most of which centered around Winnie trying to say 'bird', 'worm' and 'head' in a Scottish accent after meeting Liz's friend Bobby.

The morning after we were keen to see some cultural stuff (yes, more temples!). Liz had mentioned to use where some of the best shrines and temples were so we'd marked them on our map and decided to go see! We started by having a great sandwich and coffee in a cafe, until some guys came in and started filling the place with cigarette smoke. I then remembered that last night, Liz had told me why the air is so clean in Japan. The law is that people cannot smoke outside, if they want to smoke then they have to go INSIDE to do it... CRAZY!!! :/

After seeing pagodas, temples and wooden Buddha's we retreated back to the hotel for a change and a little nap. Then went out in search of a seafood restaurant we'd spotted on the city map. We were not disappointed  When we found it, the place was set out like a pirate's harbour where the seating area was in a big wooden ship and the water surrounding them was filled with fish. We were able to fish for our own food. After 2 unsuccessful (and kind of pathetic) attempts at cathing a fish. Winnie was helped by a Japanese man, who couldn't bare to watch us fail again, and caught a fish. We opted to have half of it made into sashimi, and the other half grilled and cooked. Both were AMAZING and I'd urge anyone visiting Fukuoka to find it. It's called Zuuo, though the pictures on the link don't do it justice. Watch here.