Fukoaka, Japan

I decided to go to Japan at the last minute with my Korean friend. I met him at the train station, then we took the KTX down to Busan. I got a smoothie at Smoothie King in the train station. It is really smooth, albeit on the expensive side. After slurping to our heart’s content, we walked down to David’s sister’s house. David was going to drop off his dog at his sister’s house while we’re gone. His sister is well versed in Japanese he said, it’s too bad she couldn't’t join us. His sister already has a dog and a cat, which has the run of the place. David’s sister gave him a big bag of kimchi for the trip. She said he would miss it. That stuff reeked, I’m surprised the security people didn’t say anything. The Koreans probably wouldn’t mention it, but what about the Japanese side? Our ferry was scheduled to leave at 10:30pm, but we had to board at 7:30pm. I went to check out the room, because it’s an 8 hour boat ride. It turns out we sleep on the floor on a mat with a rock hard pillow. Also, apparently they don’t separate men and women as both were represented. You may ask, “where do you change?” Well, there was a little area with a curtain for that. There were some Japanese on board as well as Koreans. Japan was playing that night in the world cup. So, we were wondering if we could pick it up on tv. They had a tv in the room and in the big room. We watched the Japanese game with a few Japanese around us. David kept asking the guys questions about Japanese language. He kept saying he doesn’t speak Japanese, but he could’ve fooled me. He would stop people in the street and ask for directions. The two Japanese guys knew the players on the team. I swear there must’ve been 5 Honda’s on the team. A Korean woman (ajuma) there was drinking and so naturally wanted other people to drink. She must have bought five cans of Japanese beer from the vending machine and passed them around to the Koreans and Japanese alike. The game went to penalty kicks. The guy called it, he said this Japanese player was going to mess up, which he did. Earlier I walked about the ship to scope it out. I went on the deck and saw a whole group of people drinking in the middle of strong wind and rain. Whatever floats your boat I reckin. The ferry arrived about 6am. I was surprised that Fukoaka had so many high rises. We were herded downstairs and loaded in buses to take us to immigration. The guy at immigration knew the Korean word for teacher, which was a little humorous. We talked to the lady at the visitor’s booth and got unlimited bus rides for the day. We made use of it. We made our way to Fukoaka Castle in the rain. It was not a castle, only the gate remained. The tour map said there was other things in the vicinity's, but no such luck.

My Korean friend told to check out the 100 Yen store in Japan. We finally found it and perused the cheap trinkets, food, and stationary. It was a rather big store. That night we made our way to Fukoaka Tower. It didn’t seem as big as Taipei 101, but it was neat nonetheless. I met a family from Ohio. It turns out, the son works for Honda. He started out in the U.S., then transferred to Japan for two years. His parents came up to visit him. We reminisced about Ohio State, otherwise known as “runner up U.” I asked about Woody Hayes, as his last game was against Clemson. We stayed at a capsule hotel, but we opted for the cheaper sauna part and slept in recliners with a little tv on each chair.
Thursday
The next morning we bought unlimited subway rides for the day. We treked out to the Marinoa. It has a outlet mall and the largest ferris wheel in Asia. We walked around a whole lot. We saw a gambling area inside the arcade room. That was interesting. Also, there were vending machines every couple of blocks leading to the Marinoa. They had Coke, Pepsi, and coffee respectively. David asked a passerby directions to the subway and she proceeded to lead us there. We took the subway to Hakata Station, which is the main station in Fukoaka. We picked up lunch at the underground shopping area. This was a small grocery store beside the train station. There was a huge shopping area near our hostel called Canal Shopping Center. It had about four levels and included a Hilton I believe. There was a huge fountain and later on it was coordinated with music. It reminded me of Disney a little bit. We met a girl from Holland who has been travelling for 4 months after only working for 6 months. Holland played Brazil that night at about 11:30pm. The communal room was slated to close at midnight, so we had to beg the owner to let us finish watching the game. I asked her why the Netherlands wears orange when their flag is red, white, and blue. She said the monarch’s last name in Dutch means ‘oranje.’
Friday
We slept til 11 and checked out three or four temples nearby. We met a woman from Germany. She was travelling by herself. I was surprised to discover so many people travelling by themselves. We went back to the underground shopping area to buy a ready made meal (tv dinner). Then, we went on the hunt to find an international ATM for David. He finally found one, but the minimum withdrawal was 10,000Y. We crashed at the hostel for a few hours. The owner told us about a 24 hour grocery store just down the street. So, we checked it out and stocked up on 99Y tv dinners. They actually had some western foods in the frozen section. I had spaghetti, pancakes, chips, and a coke. It was a little random I know, but it’s been awhile since I had those kinds of food. By the way, 100 Yen is about $1. We gorged ourselves and were full for once. We went for a walk a bit then came back to the hostel. The owner told us we had a roommate and to top it off he was Korean. We also met a Canadian who used to teach English in Seoul. We walked around that night and ran into a group of Koreans. It gave us a chance to practice our Korean.