Friday, August 29, 2008
Fukuoka
I know I said in my last post that I would fill you in on all my Fukuoka adventures, however, I waited too long to post and have forgotten a bunch of what I did, so I will let the pictures I took speak for me.
After checking out the school and getting settled into my apartment, it was time to hit the town with my fellow Yamanashi JETs Jamie and JD along with some others from the school. There is a really nice mall-like shopping area that has a movie theater, game center, and a bunch of stores and restaurants near the school. The shopping center was really pretty at nice, so we just walked around to enjoy the view and then decided on okonomiyaki for dinner. I believe it was my first time ever trying okonomiyaki. It's bascially like a pancake, but made with more savory materials. Good stuff.
On my daily walk to school I pass a few interesting sites. One is these giant streamer things. Not sure what they are for, but there is a whole walkway of them and they look really cool. there is also an awesome field of some type of flowers across from the school too.
The school offered a quick little trip to interesting places around the school, the main attraction being a small, local, temple. Many of the students in the group had never seen a temple and were quite impressed. After having seen so many, I'm starting to develop the opinion that they all look the same. This particular temple did have 2 things going for it though. One was this really cool zodiac wheel on one of the gates ceilings. You probably wouldn't notice it unless someone pointed it out, but it was definitaly one of the coolest things I've even seen in a shrine. There was all this large float display with tiny dolls that I'd never seen before.
I did a lot of exploring of the city and also did a bunch of shopping. I bough some poster for my room back home and had a ton of different foods. One of my favorite places to eat was this custom ramen place callied ichiran. I loved that place! You basically go, sit in you little box, fill out a sheet with how you want your ramen, and then it magically appears a few minutes latter. I really like the extra garlic and spicy options.
School also did a karaoke night, which I attended. Not so much fun karaokeing with a huge group of people you don't know though. I don't even think I sang a single song the entire evening and it was like double the price of any other karaoke session I've been too. However, it was fun to meet new people and do a bit of hanging out. After karaoke a bunch of people decided to go clubing, but I called it a night.
Looking through my pictures makes me feel like I didn't do that much while in Fukuoka, but then I realize that I was busy with class many of the days and wasn't in Fukuoka all that long. Plus, a lot of the thme I was there, it was pouring down rain anyway!
Some more random pics of that field by the school and the fish tanks at the train station.
I decided to walk along the field of flowers one day to see what I could find, and low and behold there was a really big park at the end. It's a pity that I found it towards the end of my trip or I would have done my homework there instead of going to my apartment to do it. I walked around the park until it started getting dark just enjoying the scene.
Even though I think that all temples look the same, I could not resist one last visit to a temple that I heard about that was nearish my apartment. Its a temple that is famous for studying. Many students go to the temple to pray for sucess in their studies and as I was a student at the time, I figured it couldn't hurt to check it out seeing how is was only about 15min. away.
One of the last things I did before leaving Fukuoka was to visit the Fukuoka Tower. I took a bus from the station and on the way past the Yahoo!Dome. The view from the tower was really nice and I had a coupon, so getting to the top wasn't all that expensive. However, while I was up at the top, it started to rain. So, I also decided to grab dinner and a drink while waiting for the rain to stop. It never really stopped, but did move from the pouring categorupy into the light drizzle categroy, so it wasn't too bad.
After checking out the school and getting settled into my apartment, it was time to hit the town with my fellow Yamanashi JETs Jamie and JD along with some others from the school. There is a really nice mall-like shopping area that has a movie theater, game center, and a bunch of stores and restaurants near the school. The shopping center was really pretty at nice, so we just walked around to enjoy the view and then decided on okonomiyaki for dinner. I believe it was my first time ever trying okonomiyaki. It's bascially like a pancake, but made with more savory materials. Good stuff.
On my daily walk to school I pass a few interesting sites. One is these giant streamer things. Not sure what they are for, but there is a whole walkway of them and they look really cool. there is also an awesome field of some type of flowers across from the school too.
The school offered a quick little trip to interesting places around the school, the main attraction being a small, local, temple. Many of the students in the group had never seen a temple and were quite impressed. After having seen so many, I'm starting to develop the opinion that they all look the same. This particular temple did have 2 things going for it though. One was this really cool zodiac wheel on one of the gates ceilings. You probably wouldn't notice it unless someone pointed it out, but it was definitaly one of the coolest things I've even seen in a shrine. There was all this large float display with tiny dolls that I'd never seen before.
I did a lot of exploring of the city and also did a bunch of shopping. I bough some poster for my room back home and had a ton of different foods. One of my favorite places to eat was this custom ramen place callied ichiran. I loved that place! You basically go, sit in you little box, fill out a sheet with how you want your ramen, and then it magically appears a few minutes latter. I really like the extra garlic and spicy options.
School also did a karaoke night, which I attended. Not so much fun karaokeing with a huge group of people you don't know though. I don't even think I sang a single song the entire evening and it was like double the price of any other karaoke session I've been too. However, it was fun to meet new people and do a bit of hanging out. After karaoke a bunch of people decided to go clubing, but I called it a night.
Looking through my pictures makes me feel like I didn't do that much while in Fukuoka, but then I realize that I was busy with class many of the days and wasn't in Fukuoka all that long. Plus, a lot of the thme I was there, it was pouring down rain anyway!
Some more random pics of that field by the school and the fish tanks at the train station.
I decided to walk along the field of flowers one day to see what I could find, and low and behold there was a really big park at the end. It's a pity that I found it towards the end of my trip or I would have done my homework there instead of going to my apartment to do it. I walked around the park until it started getting dark just enjoying the scene.
Even though I think that all temples look the same, I could not resist one last visit to a temple that I heard about that was nearish my apartment. Its a temple that is famous for studying. Many students go to the temple to pray for sucess in their studies and as I was a student at the time, I figured it couldn't hurt to check it out seeing how is was only about 15min. away.
One of the last things I did before leaving Fukuoka was to visit the Fukuoka Tower. I took a bus from the station and on the way past the Yahoo!Dome. The view from the tower was really nice and I had a coupon, so getting to the top wasn't all that expensive. However, while I was up at the top, it started to rain. So, I also decided to grab dinner and a drink while waiting for the rain to stop. It never really stopped, but did move from the pouring categorupy into the light drizzle categroy, so it wasn't too bad.
