Flea Market and Culture in Kyoto

We almost witnessed a drama this morning at the Osaka station!  We had checked out of the hotel and were making our way to catch the train to Kyoto, when we suddenly heard a woman screaming and we saw a few people running and shouting.  It was just a little too far away for us to see what was going on, but we’re guessing it was a bag snatch.  We didn’t think that such things happen in Japan.  If it was a bag snatch, I’d put my money on the culprit being a foreigner.

Anyway, when that little drama was over, we worked out how to buy our tickets for Kyoto (only 540 yen each) and made our way on to the train.  The trip was supposed to take 28 minutes, but part way through the journey, the train slowed down considerably.  We have no idea what was going on, and the only things I could pick up from the announcement that came over the PA were “this train” and “sorry”.  But we’re on holidays, so we weren’t in a hurry.

Rice straw drying.  Among other things, it is used for making tatami mats

When we arrived in Kyoto, the first thing we did was to put our backpacks and coats in a locker so we could roam freely without our burdens.  The Kyoto railway station is amazing!  We didn’t see it last year, because we were riding scooters when we were in Kyoto.  It’s really massive and Wikipedia tells me it’s the second largest railway building in Japan after Nagoya.  We took the escalator up to the roof to get a good view of the city.  The roof has a nice little ornamental garden, complete with the recorded chirping of crickets.  Unfortunately, the Kyoto Castle is hidden by other buildings, but the view was impressive nonetheless.

Kyoto Railway Station

We then picked up some brochures and maps from the Tourist Office and looked through them over a cup of tea in a café.  We discovered that there was a flea market on at one of the shrines, so we bought ourselves a one-day bus pass for 500 yen each, found the right place to catch the bus and set off on an adventure.  Fortunately, there was a lady on the bus who was going to the flea market, so we knew when to get off.  Otherwise, we might still be cruising Kyoto on the bus!

The flea market was like no other flea market that we’ve ever seen.  There were more stalls than we could count and the items on display were so varied and interesting.  It did cross our minds that this den of thieves was operating in the grounds of a house of prayer, but markets and shrines seem to co-exist quite comfortably in Japan.

Markets at shrines - very common in Japan

Calligrapher

We found some Japanese fans that appear to be very old and we couldn’t resist them.  We also sampled a few nice things from the food stalls.  I could have filled six suitcases with crockery, bags, ornaments etc. so it’s probably a good thing that we are short of space.  I did buy a couple of tiny pottery pieces that will squeeze in somewhere.

A fun day in Kyoto

Filling buns. 

 This man did a rapid-fire  'squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt' with his dough,

always putting in just the right amount and never getting a drop out of place

Lots of kimonos in Kyoto!

The old and the new

Taking a break with a serving of okonomiyaki - yum!

This beautiful old book was beyond our budget

Pretty umbrellas.  The flowers only appear when the umbrella is wet

We caught the bus back to the station to pick up our backpacks and that’s when we discovered that our locker was on the wrong side of the station gates!  We went to the station staff to explain our plight.  They’re obviously used to silly foreigners doing this as they immediately handed me a ‘pass’ which allowed us through the gates and which we then returned to the staff as we came back out.  We won’t do that one again!

We then caught another bus, this time to the stop nearest our hostel.  It was only a couple of minutes walk from the bus stop to the hostel, a fact which pleased us no end as we were lugging our packs this time.

After we checked in, I got myself ready to go to Gion Corner to see the ‘Japanese Culture in One Hour’ performance.  This isn’t what it’s called, but it describes what it is.  It is a one hour show that gives the audience a sample of various aspects of Japanese culture including tea ceremony, music performances, dance, ikebana (flower arranging), traditional drama and a bunraku (puppet) performance.  John wasn’t interested in seeing the show, but he walked with me to the theatre and then came back to the hostel.  I really enjoyed the show, particularly the dance and the bunraku.  I was very disappointed that I didn’t have the camera as it was announced that taking photos was OK.  I’d assumed that it would not be allowed so didn’t even consider taking the camera.

We spent the rest of the evening in the hostel.  There are many people from many lands here – all relaxing and chatting and watching TV in the lounge area.  Tomorrow we plan to enjoy the two festivals that are happening around the city.  Rain permitting, of course.  It started drizzling tonight and rain is forecast for tomorrow.  Bad timing!

Back in Osaka

The ferry crossing was very smooth and we arrived in Osaka at about 8.30am.

A fellow two-wheeled tourist.  That's a tent on the front!

Our journey back to the scooter rental shop started with a bit of a wrong turn, but with a combination of John’s navigation skills and good memory, we got there without too much difficulty.  We had to refill the scooters with petrol before returning them, but the only petrol station we saw was on the other side of the very busy road.  We solved the problem by becoming pedestrians. After wheeling the scooters across at the pedestrian crossing, fuelling up and then reversing the process, we were soon on our way again.

It was rather strange to part with the scooters.  Despite the bit of concern about John’s less than healthy engine, we had a wonderful time exploring where very few (if any) Aussies have ever been before.  We met some wonderful people and  saw some amazing sights.  We’re glad to have had such a unique experience together.

Weighed down with our backpacks, we attempted to find our hotel.  Because our other accommodation along the way was pre-planned, we had maps and clear directions about how to find the various hotels.  However, this one was a last-minute change of plans due to the change of ferry departure point, so we hadn’t organised ourselves as well as we should have.  We tried to find the hotel on a station map, asked directions from a young lady who pointed us in the general direction, and finally got very good directions from a station attendant.  We were very happy to offload our luggage at the hotel and then go exploring until check-in time.

We were both quite tired after our ride through Osaka and a hot walk to the hotel, so we looked on the map for a likely looking park for a rest in the shade.  The place we found was near to the Umeda Sky Building.  The park had decent benches, shady trees and (bless the Japanese) a vending machine.  John settled down on a park bench for a snooze and I continued reading Mark Twain’s biography on my Kindle.  Just the ‘time-out’ we needed!

This guy needed some time out too.  Very elegant!

Once we felt ready to take on Osaka again, we visited the Umeda Sky Building.  This building consists of two 40-storey towers, connected at the top two floors, with a glass-sided escalator crossing the space in the centre.  I still find it hard to believe that I actually went up there!  The view from the top was absolutely amazing.  Osaka is truly a mega-city with multi-storey buildings sprawled out in every direction as far as the eye can see.  Our 14 storey hotel looked like a little midget amongst the surrounding giants.

Our hotel is marked with the arrow

Did I really go up there?

The glass-sided elevator (previous picture shows this from ground level)

We watched the construction work going on across the road

Does Osaka not have enough multi-storey buildings already??

Painter at the top of the Umeda Sky Building

We made our way back to the hotel and took a break before heading out for dinner.  We found a nice little diner nearby, where we had gyouza and I had corn ramen while John chose a plate of pork and various veggie things with rice.  It was REALLY good!  An interesting addition to the meal was the plate of free boiled eggs which we were invited to eat while we waited for our meal to cook.  [Another Japanese lesson:  when a restaurant or shop includes something for free, they use the word ‘sabisu’ (service) which means it’s a free service that they offer].  Our boiled eggs were ‘sabisu’.

We weren't tempted to eat here!

Finally (of course) we had an ice cream from the Family Mart convenience store.  These convenience stores really are too convenient.

Tomorrow we’re off to Kyoto, so we did a bit of research to see what we can manage in two days.  The upside is that there are two festivals on Saturday.  The downside is that rain is predicted - for Saturday.  A bit tricky for the Fire Festival.  Maybe they'll have to rename it the Fizzle and Steam Festival.

Farewell to Kyushu

For Wednesday 19 October

We had superb weather today for our last ride on the island of Kyushu.

We had all day to get from Fukuoka to Kitakyushu, so we were able to take it easy along the way.  We stopped in at Miyajihama, a lovely sandy beach, for a leisurely morning tea break.  I went for a wander along the beach while John sat in the shade with his Kindle.

Kate being a beach bum again - Miyajihama

It's only a toilet block, but I thought it was rather nice!

Our scooters at Miyajihama

Our lunch stop was at a shopping centre where we had a good browse through the shops before buying lunch at the bakery.  There were a number of interesting items in the bakery including purple rolls!

Hmm!  Things that we DIDN'T have for lunch

We took a bit of a detour so we could see the bridge which connects Kyushu and Honshu.  At the point where the bridge crosses, the islands are very close together.  The reason we chose to go by ferry rather than riding is that if we took the bridge route, we would have had a long ride to Osaka, while the ferry will take us all the way as we sleep.

Bridge to Honshu (taken from a cemetery on a hill)

We had trouble finding our ferry terminal as it was really not clear on the website where our terminal was located.  We went to the wrong section of the port and had to ask directions which were delivered by a nice young lady who couldn’t speak any English, with a map which was less than helpful.  Fortunately, we had several hours to spare, so we weren’t too concerned and we finally found our terminal.

A nice ferry terminal we found during our search - however, not the right one

When it was finally time to board, we were amazed at the number of trucks which were lined up.  Interestingly, they drove on to the ferry, dropped off their trailers, turned around and drove out again.  So our ferry has a large number of containers on board, but not the trucks that brought them.  They will be picked up at the other end, saving the need for the truck drivers to make the journey.

We were waiting at the boarding area with a small group of motorcycles, including some very shiny Harleys, when the ferry staff gave us the go-ahead to board.  John chose to start his engine after all the others, so they didn’t hear his ‘rattle, rattle’ engine!  We’re relieved to now be on board, as once the scooter is in Osaka, if it breaks down, we can ring Mr Tanaka, the rental guy, and he will come and get it.

We had a nice dinner in the ferry’s restaurant and then sat in the comfortable lounge area to have our after-dinner ice cream – which, incidentally, seems to have become a bit of a habit.  We followed this with watching a TV show about obesity!  It’s a good thing we don’t have any shops in our vicinity at home, so we’ll be able to stop this ‘ice cream after dinner’ routine.

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!

Sightseeing in Fukuoka

Another lovely day for sightseeing!

Our first stop today was the Tochoji Temple.  This temple houses Japan’s largest sitting wooden Buddha (10.3 metres tall).  The temple and the statue were both very impressive.  In 1992 a new pagoda was built in the temple grounds.  It is really stunning!  The temple has a number of guides who take visitors around, so we had our own personal tour guide who spoke very good English.

The pagoda at the Tochoji Temple

One of two guardians at the gates of a nearby shrine

After that we went (via a little workshop where a man restores old motorbikes) to the Hakata Traditional Craft Centre.  This was a very small centre, but the items on display were very beautiful, including the traditional Hakata clay dolls and woven silk fabrics.

At 12.00 sharp, all the salarymen erupted from the surrounding offices

Our journey took us down a quaint little street with traditional small Japanese restaurants so we dropped into one for lunch.  This was a ‘one woman show’ in a very small shop, with two basic items on the menu, which came in a few different variations.  The set meal which we bought included a large plate of fried noodles, a bowl of rice, miso soup, some tofu and vegetables.  All for 680 yen!

Yakisoba (fried noodles) being prepared on the hotplate

Our next stop was Canal City for some daytime photographs …

Canal City by day

…and then back to the hotel to recover.

We checked our email and have received confirmation of our changed ferry booking, but needed to find a way to cancel the original one.  We booked it online with the help of a Japanese friend and did not have the login details to make the cancellation.  The website had no email address and I wasn’t happy about trying to have a complex conversation in Japanese on the phone.  I finally went down to the front counter staff at the hotel and explained my dilemma.  The lovely young lady at the desk immediately picked up the phone and sorted it out for me.  We love our Toyoko Hotels!!

We hadn’t decided about where to go for dinner but I’d read that the Tenjin area, which is a few subway stops away from here, has a large number of ‘yatai’ (street stalls) which are set up from about 6.00pm each night.  We took the subway to the Tenjin station and wandered about.  It didn’t take long to discover the little stalls which were scattered along the roads around the station.  We went into one and each had a bowl of champon, with a couple of skewers of meat for John.  It was delicious, inexpensive and fun to eat in a little booth on the footpath.

Watching our dinner being prepared

We did a bit of browsing and window shopping in Tenjin, which is a very lively place at night, before making our way back to Hakata station on the subway.

John found some new girlfriends in Tenjin

I forgot to mention yesterday that there is a large multi-storey store at the Hakata Station and we noticed that Floors 1,2,3,4,7 and 8 had ladies clothes and accessories, while only Floor 6 had men’s clothes  Judging by the fashions that we see on the young ladies in Japan, this isn’t terribly surprising!

Back at the hotel, we watched Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia talking in Japanese.  R2D2 and Chewbacca sounded the same as usual.

We’re going further afield tomorrow, so will need to work out how the bus system works.

Off to Fukuoka

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Karatsu, but today it was time to move on to our next destination.

Before we left, we walked down to the building adjacent to the railway station which houses a collection of pottery from various kilns around Karatsu.  We bought a couple of chopsticks rests in the shape of renkon (lotus root) slices.  Very cute, a nice memento of Japan and most importantly, they'll fit in my bag.

A fugu (puffer fish) restaurant in Karatsu.  No thanks!

We then headed off for Fukuoka, which is the seventh largest city in Japan.  After riding for only a couple of minutes, we found ourselves riding through Niji-no-matsubara, a 360 year old pine forest which runs for about 4 kilometres along the coast of Karatsu.  It was beautiful riding under the cool canopy of trees.  The rest of the ride was varied.  The first half was along the coast, with the sea on the left and the tree-covered hills on the right.  The traffic was reasonably light and we saw the occasional fisherman enjoying a pleasant Sunday morning by the sea.

As we got closer to Fukuoka, the traffic became much heavier and it wasn’t really much fun.  I did see another amusing name for a hairdresser shop to add to my list.  This one was called “Hair Labo Nosh”.

It was good to arrive in Fukuoka and get the scooters parked at the Toyoko Inn.  We picked up a few benefits from our Toyoko Inn membership today.  With a 20% discount because it’s Sunday, a 5% discount for the other days (a standard member benefit)), a voucher for the value of a single room because we’d accumulated 10 points, and a discount for choosing the ‘eco plan’ (no room cleaning on the second day), we only paid $59 per night for the three nights we’re here – right in the middle of a big city!

We started our exploration at the railway station to pick up some maps and information.  There is a Hankyu Department Store attached to the railway station, so we went for a browse through the Food Hall.  Not quite as spectacular at the one in Osaka, but still pretty amazing!

Yum!!

We sat in the plaza in front of the station watching the world go by and then went back to the hotel to browse through the brochures.  We won’t be short of things to do in Fukuoka!

Fukuoka Girls

Kids playing in the pond in the plaza

We've seen a number of ladies in kimonos during the last few weeks

After a read and a rest, we found our way over to Canal City, a mega shopping and entertainment complex.  What an amazing place!  The colourful and curved architecture is wonderful and a canal runs through the middle of the complex.  A fountain performs a water show every half an hour and the whole place is bustling with activity.  We spent quite a bit of time just admiring the sights and then made our way up to a higher floor to find some dinner.  We found a nice place and had an enjoyable meal and a chat with a Japanese man at the next table who was quite interested to hear about our travels.

Two clothing shops in Canal City - "Setting Cracks" and "Mind Blow"

Child playing in the water feature on the pavement

The fountain show in the canal

We wandered back towards the hotel via the 7-11 store to see if they sold tea bags as we’re running out (now THAT would be a disaster!).  Fortunately, they had some packets of Darjeeling tea bags so we’re saved.  We celebrated with an ice cream.

Sign at a dental clinic

OK!

Before returning to the hotel, we decided to check out the view from the observation deck on the roof of the railway station building.  It was a terrific view and gave us a true sense of what a big city this really is.  It was a lovely cool evening – just right for strolling around.

We then wandered back over to the hotel to charge our batteries ready to take on the sights tomorrow.