Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 99

After Kumamoto, we headed back to Fukuoka. The Shinkansen had a totally different look than we'd seen before, with sleek wood trim and tile floors.

On the way out, we picked up a snack of these little donut-looking things.

More pictures from the train.

The Fukuoka City Subway has three subway lines: the Kuko Line, the Hakozaki Line and the Nanakuma Line. The subway uses unique logos for each station (like the Mexico City Metro). Fukuokakuko Station (the airport station)has a logo symbolizing an airplane. Gion station had this little cute guy running. They also have all of the logos on the station maps.

We caught a couple of things that we didn't see the first time in Fukuoka. First up was the Fukuoka Tower. At 234 meters, it is the highest seaside tower in Japan. It was designed by Nikken Sekkei and was finished in 1989 on reclaimed land from the Hakata Bay. The tower was a major feature in the 1994 Japanese film Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, in which it was also destroyed in the climatic battle between the monsters.

Looking down from the top, you can see Marizon, a wharf-like area extending into the waters of Momochi Beach. There are restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops, as well as and a ferry that takes you across the bay to the Uminonakamichi resort and amusement area.

You can also get great views of the shoreline and the city.

The Fukuoka Yafuoku! Dome is the home stadium of Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks baseball team. Built in 1993, it was Japan's first stadium with a retractable roof.

Outside of the dome, there was a row of these bronze "hands". There have been quite a few concerts there and it seems that perhaps these are done by the bands that do concerts. There were a few notable ones that we recognized. The stadium hosted Frank Sinatra's final public concerts on 19 and 20 December 1994. Bon Jovi played a concert at the dome on May 13, 1995 during their These Days Tour.

Our last night's dinner was at Kazaguruma, which is an izakaya in a relocated 200-year-old farmhouse accented with heavy wooden beams. It is a bit dark inside, but we tried to capture a bit of the atmosphere. It has both a counter (with 5 or 6 seats, which is where we were sitting) and tables. We were glad to be at the counter since we got to see all of the action in the tiny kitchen.

Their menu was only in Japanese, but they knew we were coming and that we didn't speak Japanese (our friend Hitomi made the reservations for us and spoke to the restaurant). There was one guy who spoke a little bit of English and basically we told him to feed us "something" :-) As with most days, we started with Sake!! They also started us with marinated bean sprouts and a cold chicken potato salad (well, that is our guess of what it was!)

Next came some sashimi, and then ...something. We don't really know most of what we ate to tell you the truth! This was like a deep-fried vegetable ball with grated daikon on the side.

Next came a smoked chicken dish (of course, with shredded cabbage). We watched as he cooked this one on an open flame and it was definitely smokey!

We also did Oden again, which is the Japanese winter dish where they have several things cooked in a light dashi broth.

We got a couple more of the vegetable balls (they were really good!)

These are the guys that served us.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast at this little place and then headed to the airport.