To Fukuoka

I took a bus from Nagato to Asa. Though I missed lunch at Nagato because of my slow cycling, I still managed to get on the bus on time, and reach Fukuoka before dinner.

I was waiting for the shinkansen from Asa station to Hakata. Asa is a relatively small station, so there were a lot of other bullet trains passing by. As a train was approaching and departing, I could feel the ground of the station shaking due to the immense speed of the train. Even as my shinkansen was stopping by and another shinkansen was running by, I could feel my own train shaking. It is amazing that despite that, there has been virtually no accident related to shinkansen.

Hakata canal city

The building looks so cool! It has a futuristic vibe, with a canal flowing through in open air.

There is even a water fountain in the middle, and music playing in the background. The music and water pattern change periodically.

Music water show at 8pm! There are a lot of people gathering downstairs to watch it. The show is also observable from a higher floor where there is less crowd.

Fish sashimi

I had the sashimi in the food complex at B1 level of this mall.

The fish is dipped in light soy sauce with sesame seeds and scallion. The flavour is great! The food in this complex can be on the more expensive side though, there are other food options in this mall outside this complex.

Yakiniku

I had an all-you-can-eat yakiniku lunch here. Indeed, this mall has a lot of food options so I came back here often.

The price is of course more competitive than those in Singapore. Shabu Sai has a relatively competitive price in the Singapore market and similar meat options, yet it is still more expensive than this.

Tonkotsu ramen

I went back to this mall for tonkotsu ramen after the unsatisfactory ramen at Yatai food stalls (found below, sorry my blog post is not in chronological order).

There is an entire ramen stadium on the fifth floor! The whole floor is filled with ramen of all kinds, all offering very competitive prices. I resolved to have good tonkotsu ramen here.

And indeed it is very good! The broth, the noodle, the egg, the meat, the mushrooms and spring onion, everything is just right. It is slightly pricier than the one at Yatai food stalls, but it is much more worth the money.

Nanzoin temple

The next day, I set out for temples, since the weather forecast said it would rain this day and not rain the days after.

There are a lot of small statues within the compound leading to the main reclining Buddha statue. Not sure what these statues are, they don’t look like Buddha.

There is even a Shinto shrine within the temple.

Arrived! The statue is quite huge, with lots of small Buddha statues in front.

The foot of Buddha have some inscriptions as well, which some tourists love to take photo of.

Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine

The walkway towards the shrine has a beautiful pond with a bridge across.

The sacred cow so called. Did this cow save Japanese people out of Egypt or sth? Anyway, many people do try to touch the cow head for good luck.

The main temple is rather … disappointing. There is really nothing much to see, except from lots of shops selling good luck charms and worship-related things that I am not particularly fond of. People also wrote their wishes and hang on the walls of the temple.

Apparently this is a shrine where people can post their wishes. I thought it was just a place to rest your legs.

At this point I think I should cut out all the remaining temples and shrines in my itinerary. Today’s temples are nothing more than disappointments.

Umegae mochi

Looks like this is only found near this shrine. It is decent, with crispy dough and a generous red bean paste filling.

Kyushu national museum

It is very nearby, so I went to take a look.

The glass window design looks so cool!

I quickly read online reviews and it said the paid exhibitions are not worth visiting. And 700 yen is so much more expensive than the 200 yen at the Hiroshima peace museum, so I decided to just take a look at the free exhibition at the ground floor.

I was surprised to find a Vietnamese booth right at the entrance! In particular it has a Doraemon storybook in Vietnamese and a photo of girls in ao dai (traditional Vietnamese dress). There are various booths for different countries in Southeast/East-Asia.

The wok from China! Unfortunately I did not find Chinese chess in the Chinese booth.

I spent a good amount of time playing with the toys here. It is quite an interesting exhibition.

Tenjin underground mall

It is a mall located right at Nishitetsu center, a huge train and bus station. The mall actually has 2 underground levels and 5 overground levels.

The first underground level is quite extensive, with rows of bakeries and rows of meat snacks. I managed to buy a custard cake here.

Upon coming to the fourth level, I was surprised to see … buses running outside. No wonder it was an underground mall, the fourth level is only the street level.

Enjoying the cake I bought from the mall!

Yatai food stalls

The food stalls are located south of Nakasu island, which is an island right in the middle of Naka river in Fukuoka.

It was rather sad: there were only close to 10 stalls, around 7 near the bridge crossing into Nakasu and 3 by the river bank. Not sure if it is because it was raining or the market had been greatly reduced.

Had a good bowl of Hakata tonkotsu ramen! Somehow the noodle and the soup are a little bit inferior to regular tonkotsu ramen.

These yakitori sticks are about the same price as those in Nagato, but the bacon is much more stingy. Perhaps Nagato is truly a hidden gem, with things costing much less.

AI told me to take a stroll in Nakasu at night to see the neon lights. Hmm, another time that AI sabotaged me by giving funny information. This is on the street right behind the Yatai food stalls. I later realised Nakasu is actually a huge red-light district …

Ok I have warned you.

Uminonakamichi seaside park

The next morning, I set out to cycle at this park, which took around 1hr from the city center.

There is always some charm about railways, idk.

Me on the bike, again! This time there are only city bikes, and one goes quite slow, which allowed me to enjoy the scenery around.

The seaside park is actually quite extensive, with quite a few spots to check out.

Uminonakamichi zoo

The ducks and swans here are quite chill, they are not bothered even when I put my camera up close. They are probably waiting for tourists to feed them.

The entrance to this area says keep the door closed or the animals may escape. Looks like the animals can actually jump out of the inner fence. Why does this dude look like he is going to kick me if I step one step closer …

Beautiful birds!

This fella behehe at me whenever I cat-called it. He sticks his head out waiting for me to feed it.

Uminonakamichi seaside

The park runs along the shore, but the view is mostly blocked by trees. There are some observation decks where I could go to to view the shoreline.

Beautiful! This shoreline is actually facing outwards towards the sea of Japan.

Beautiful view of the park and the seashore in the background.

Seafood donburi

Since the food around the area near Uminonakamichi park is quite expensive, I travelled closer to Shikashima island for better food.

It is decent, for a very affordable price. However, I wonder if the seasoning is not enough or sth, but it tastes not as good as seafood donburi found elsewhere. The portion size is quite generous though.

Shikashima island

Upon arriving at Shikashima island, I checked out the bike rental price. And oh man, it is really expensive! So I decided to take a hike instead.

The road up to the island’s observatory. It is quite steep, making me remember the uphills in Nagato. Fortunately, this is hiking, so all is good.

A Shinto shrine with a very cool outlook to the sea.

View of the Uminonakamichi park, from the observatory. The sand line on the right is actually the bridge from the park to this island. That is quite cool though, I thought the bridge was totally man-made.

After the observatory, I headed downhill to Katsuma beach.

Bridge connecting the road to the beach.

Very chill scenery. Katsuma beach outlooks a few islands very near the shoreline.

Hakata station

AI never recommended this place, but I chanced upon it when I was strolling to the bus terminal.

This place is huge! Probably better than the AI-suggested Tenjin mall. And look at the square crowded with a sea of people. It is actually a food market. The REAL Yatai stalls. I walked down there, and wow, there are so many stalls selling food, and lots of locals crowded this place for snacks. This should have been on my itinerary. Whether Yatai stalls could be as big, it still remains a mystery.

The mall itself is quite big, and has up to 11 levels. It is probably the same scale as or bigger than canal city, though of course the scenery is not as good.

I went into the mall, found a huge bookstore with a kpop section!

My Aespa idols are so fire 😍.

There are also nsfw sections … wonder why Japanese stores sell this kind of thing so prevalently.

There are also two floors of restaurants, with very decent prices.

Babymonster pop-up store 🥰 probably because they are having concert in Japan soon.

Okonomiyaki

Returned here the next day for a yummy okonomiyaki. This is probably Osaka style, not Hiroshima style. Had squid, octopus balls and mentaiko.

Ohori park

I spent a chill morning here before Itoshima, to reflect and have some time to write this blog post.

It is a very chill park with a pagoda in the middle of the pond. In the early morning, there were a multitude of people running around the pond.

A pagoda in the middle of the pond. Also, it’s very rare to see a German shepherd in Japan (as in the background), the more common breeds in Japan are Shiba and Poodle.

Itoshima

It is a coastal district with a beautiful shoreline to cycle through, with scenic spots in between.

Egg desserts right from the farm! The top one is egg pudding, it is so rich and so soft, much better than regular pudding. Worth the slightly higher price. The bottom is a lemon parfait, the sourness of lemon is a bit overwhelming, but the bottom cake layers are so good.

One more time on the bike. The coast is so beautiful. This time I rented an e-bike, and it is so good to ride on an e-bike! The uphills are so easy, and it can go relatively faster.

Checkpoint: the torii gate. So beautiful! How come Japan has all these beautiful floating torii gates. Would have been such a romantic dating spot if it was a little bit less crowded, but there was a line of people trying to take pictures of the gate head-on.

I was supposed to have lunch at a seafood restaurant, but upon arriving, I was horrified at the length of the queue … so I headed to the opposite cafe instead.

The hamburger is interesting, with excessive sauce. Not a fan of it though. The burger is decent.

I skipped the further spots (angelic photo spot, some scenic spot, palm tree swings) because I was pressed for time. Itoshima would have been so great if I could spend one full day here. If you go there, you can also look out for other interesting activities, hearsay they have surfing lessons.

Fukuoka tower

The tallest building in Fukuoka. This building has a particularly beautiful view due to its location by the sea.

The view looking up to the ceiling at the ground floor. Inside is actually hollow, so essentially the building is built just for the top floors. So interestingly, we can’t tell how tall this building is by the number of levels.

Breath-taking view of the city! We can see some tall structures here and there in Fukuoka. Looks really like I’m in a Simcity game.

Momochi seaside park. That looks so cool though, with the floating mansion and the piers.

Upon entering the lower levels, there are some interesting games like gacha, photoshoot, lovelock, etc. There are 3 levels in total, the bottom one is to take elevator to the ground floor.

Momochi seaside park

The floating building really looks like an extravagant mansion by some billionaire. It is actually a private wedding venue. Aww, whose wedding is so sweet … and so expensive.

There were piers protruding out from the shoreline, so I went there sitting and reflecting.

Fukuoka tower and the mansion with the beach in one frame.

Concluding words

Fukuoka has a lot of things to see. It definitely has a strong city vibe, and can be quite crowded (full of both locals and tourists). There can be a lot of day trip ideas from Fukuoka that I do not have time to explore. It is also here that I thought I started to have travel fatigue, it turns out that I just had a boring day. If you do visit here, try to read more blogs and recommendations, don’t listen to AI: it suggests spots that are rather boring. Personally I felt like I wasted one day visiting boring temples, it could have been better spent at Itoshima or Fukuoka teamlabs. On a side note, the temples can be interesting for you though, just as a Christian I do not enjoy these temples that do not offer scenery. Overall, Fukuoka offers a great mix of experiences.