We rented a car and left on Thursday after work. We drove about two hours and stopped in a town in Okayama called Kurashiki. It's a very small city, but it has this one area with canals running through it, and cute little shops and things on either side, little bridges, vendors selling things, it was really cute. We spent the night and Friday morning there, then drove down to Fukuoka. We got in around dinner time. Saturday we saw some of the sights in Fukuoka. We went to a temple with a big statue of Buddha inside. Fukuoka is far enough south that the cherry blossoms were already starting to bloom. There was one big tree in front of the temple that was blooming, it was really pretty. Then we went to Ohori-koen, a big park. There is a big lake in the park, and the park kind of wraps around the lake. There were things like museums and gardens around the outside of the lake, and a stretch of land linked by bridges cutting across the middle of the lake. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was about 70 degrees, sunny, with a clear blue sky. We wandered around the park, went into one of the Japanese gardens, saw the remains of the castle walls where Fukuoka castle once was. Then we did a little shopping, and went back to the hotel for a little rest before dinner. For dinner we went to the Canal City area and had ramen from a vendor along the river. Fukuoka (or rather Hakata, which is part of Fukuoka) is famous for its ramen. While we were eating outside at this vendor, it started to rain. Most people left, but we stayed there, sitting at our table in the rain. The waiters brought us umbrellas. I think they thought we were crazy foreigners, sitting there eating ramen in the rain. We were determined to have the Hakata-ramen-from-a-vendor experience.
Saturday night we went out to celebrate Lara's birthday. We went to a club that ended up being full of foreigners. It took us a while to find a place. Going out in Japan is not at all like going out in the US, or even Europe. Back home, you know you're going to get either a bar, a lounge, or a dance club (roughly). You see a building, with a door and a sign, and you know what it is. In Japanese cities, things are stacked on top of each other and every inch of the block is exploding with signs for places you can't even see. Most of these buildings have maybe 6 to 10 floors, say, and on each floor is a different business--a restaurant, a club, a bar, a hair salon, I don't even know. There is a huge sign sticking off the side of the building with the names and floors of the places inside. It's like a vertical strip mall. But there's a much wider variety of types of places you can go. There aren't just "bars." There are hostess bars, the male equivalent host bars, sex clubs, karaoke bars, karaoke boxes, dance clubs, one place we found was a virtual golf bar, where you could hang out, have drinks and snacks and play virtual golf, and I don't even know what else. Everything is just MORE. So it took us a while to find a place. But once we did we had fun.
We got back late and slept in Sunday morning. Then we checked out of our hotel and went to get breakfast, did some last minute shopping and got on the road around 2pm. We drove straight back with only a few rest stops and breaks for meals, and got back to Yamasaki around 9:30.
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