Journey to the South of Japan - Kyushu! #8

Day 10 - Shingu, Fukuoka

*YUI stalker alert*

I woke up super early (and dragged my dad along as well) to make a trip to Shingu (YUI's hometown) for a short beach visit. The train ride was pretty short, and the train itself looked very old-school!





We cut through a small forest to reach the beach, paying a visit to a small shrine on the way. The pine forest was nicely maintained, especially with the various shapes and sizes of pine trees. Eventually we could see the sea!





The beach was totally deserted, save for a couple of elderly walking their dogs on the sand. Still, it was beautifully clean and the sea water was sparkling clear. After 2 weeks of driving around and walking on concrete, it felt good to feel the sea breeze, hear the sound of the waves and plod around in the sand. I did get a sunburn though, the morning sun was blazing (even though it actually felt chilly).

We headed back to Fukuoka to meet up with my mum and sis for a breakfast of (guess what?) ramen! Next on the itinerary was a visit to Hawk's Town and Yahoo! Dome.

Hawk's Town is really just a very large shopping centre, similar to VivoCity. Together with the Yahoo! Dome, it forms the home ground of Fukuoka's baseball team, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. And true to the name, I spotted a couple of hawks soaring high in the sky above the Dome.





Zepp Fukuoka was also located in the area, as well as a Hard Rock Cafe. I was particularly interested in Zepp Fukuoka (a live house) so I went to check out the premises. It had an underground and industrial feel to it, judging from the thick steel doors. One day I'd love to attend a live performance in one of these live houses. The performances for that night went along the lines of "RUDE", with fierce looking bands plastered all over the poster. Not my kind of music :P



We took a short walk to Fukuoka Tower, located adjacent to the Yahoo! Dome. It was nothing more than a glorified observation tower, but the view from the top was great!





We then took a bus to Marinoa City, a large outlet mall located on the outskirts of Fukuoka. I didn't have much to see, other than a very interesting shop selling all kinds of random stuff (their version of a chapalang shop). I bought a couple of vinyl stickers for my guitar and bass, and that was about it. I had wanted to get myself a new pair of sneakers, but the prices weren't that great, and those that were cheap didn't have my size. Curse my size 10.5 feet!

We headed back to Tenjin for some more shopping (I headed straight to the music stores), followed by dinner at this really nice restaurant. The waitress looked exactly like Ayumi Hamasaki in her younger days! I wanted to take a picture but she was busy serving other customers and so I couldn't get a shot.

My dad ordered a dish he'd been craving for days - live, transparent squid



It was still moving D: and the skin kept changing colour whenever something touched it D:
Needless to say I didn't touch it at all. I prefer my food cooked and very much dead, thank you very much.

Day 11 - Fukuoka

The next morning we visited a local seafood market.



There wasn't much buzz since it was a Friday morning, but it was still interesting to look at all the fresh seafood on sale. My dad, being the "tam jiak gui" that he is, decided to try a live abalone. Unfortunately it was quite tough and wasn't very nice.

We then took a short subway trip to Ohori Park.



The lake in the middle of the park was filled with HUGE carp! And judging from the number of people throwing food into the lake, I could tell why. We took a little walk around the lake and chanced upon a some Mandarin ducks and a couple of egrets looking for their meal.





As we made our way back to the park entrance, I spotted a group of kindergarten kids having a picnic in the middle of a field with their teachers! Why didn't my kindergarten school ever organise something like this? ):



We took a subway back to Tenjin for lunch at Shin Shin Ramen, a ramen place favoured by many local celebrities and bands. *YUI stalker alert!*



All the walls and every available space above the counter was filled with signatures from various musicians, singers and indie bands! Besides YUI, I also spotted Nico touches the walls, The Okamotos, Supercar, ACIDMAN and many others!







And of course, the reason for their popularity was their ramen! I can safely say that the bowl of Shin Shin ramen I had could beat all other ramen that I've had during my stay in Japan. Usually most people judge a good bowl of ramen from the soup stock, right? Well almost every ramen I've had had very tasty stock. But this was different. The stock was good alright, but the noodles, an often overlooked ingredient, had a very distinctive taste! I could just eat the noodles by itself!



I was thoroughly satisfied after that lunch. What a way to complete this Kyushu journey, starting off with a bowl of ramen, and ending off with another bowl of the very best. In a way, this trip can be summarised into a few words - a castle/shrine visiting, jigoku/onsen viewing, ramen tasting, YUI stalking trip.

And so I've come to end of my narration. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it and looking at the photographs! For more photographs visit my Facebook page, or my Photobucket album :D

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Phew, finally done with it. I can now go back to posting random stuff about my not-so-interesting daily life.