A trip to the library (I couldn't help it!)

A full day of sightseeing today!

We purchased an all day bus pass in anticipation of our exploring.  An individual pass was 600 yen, but a ‘pair pass’ was available for 1000 yen for two people travelling together.  This was great value as we could make as many bus trips as we wanted for the whole day.

Our first destination was the Fukuoka Tower area.  Before visiting the tower, we went to have a look at ‘Marizon’, a waterfront facitlity which is part of the Momochi Seaside Park.  There is a lovely beach area and a wedding facility with a 30 metre bridal walk and 4 ocean view banquet rooms.

We then went over to the Fukuoka Tower, a 234 metre high mirror-covered tower with an observation deck to view Fukuoka from above.  A good spot to have a sit down and an ice cream!

Fukuoka Tower (and Kate resting her legs)

Next on the agenda was the Fukuoka City Public Library.  I sat John on a comfy seat and went for a good browse.  The library was an interesting combination of modern and ‘last century’ features.  The building was very impressive with pleasant seating/reading areas and a nice staircase leading up to the second floor.  A display in the main foyer area showed the energy savings made by the solar panels and the self-check machines appeared to be well-used.  However, the library still had a collection of video cassettes which all looked like they were well past their use-by date and the International materials upstairs were accessed by a card catalogue.  It's been many years since I’ve seen a card catalogue so I had a rummage through it just for fun.  The children’s area was very good – spacious and with a good collection of materials including books in other languages.

Fukuoka City Public Library

After my ‘busman’s holiday’, we went over to the Museum.  Before admiring the collections, we visited the café for lunch and another much needed sit down.  The museum was very interesting.  Items of interest included very old pottery jugs and bowls, and various tools made of wood and stone.

Fukuoka Museum

We then had to work out which bus to take to Ohori Park, our next destination.  We asked a couple of young ladies for help and although they weren’t sure, an older lady worked out what we were trying to do, explained in Japanese to the young ladies, who then pointed us in the direction of the next bus stop down the road.

Ohori Park was a lovely place to visit and we enjoyed our stroll in the sunshine.  Fukuoka has a number of open space areas, which help to make such a big city much more enjoyable.  Ohori Park has a large lake in the centre - which was once a part of Fukuoka Castle’s moat - and a 2 kilometre walking/jogging/cycling track around the circumference.

Lake at Ohori Park

Cute paddle boat in Ohori Park

At one end of the park is a beautiful Japanese garden, the next stop on our journey.  This garden was really gorgeous, with bridges, waterfalls, traditional ornaments and beautifully trimmed trees and box hedges.  This garden was mostly responsible for the fact the we took over 170 photos today!

Japanese Garden

...and more Japanese garden

This time we were able to work out for ourselves which bus we needed to catch and we made our way back to the hotel for a quick refresh before going out to find dinner.

Since we were on a roll with our bus pass, we caught the city loop bus to the Canal City area, where we had noticed many street stalls setting up when we passed by earlier.  It didn’t take us long to find a stall with some spare seats and some nice food on offer.  We had gyouza (fried dumplings) and John had a few skewers of pork.

A nice spot for dinner!

We took one last bus ride back to the hotel and did the washing and a bit of research in readiness for our trip to Kitakyushu tomorrow.

The time seems to be going really quickly now – we’ve just realized that this time next week, we’ll be in Hong Kong and rapidly running out of holiday!