Our First Visitors

We had our first house guests this weekend! It was so much fun having Arin and Kristina up from Okinawa, and it gave us a good excuse to get out and do some exploring. The weather wasn't really behaving but we were able to spend some time in Nagasaki and Fukuoka with them before they had to go back. 

 Our first day was spent walking around Nagasaki. After visiting the Peace park, epicenter, and atomic bomb museum we walked over to Fukusai-Ji temple. It is one of the most visually interesting shrines we've been to. It has a giant Kannon standing on top of the shell of a sea turtle. The shell of the turtle serves as the roof of the building. 

David and Eisley exploring the inside of the shrine bell.

The inside was very beautiful. Most shrines sell little tokens that you can write on for good luck. I love how they re purposed theirs into hanging chandeliers. 

One of the things the shrine is noted for is their Foucault's Pendulum, which is currently the second largest in the world. It originates inside the top of the main Kannon's head and hangs 25m to below the main floor over the remains of 16,500 Japanese killed during WWII.

 Nearby is the lesser traveled Shofuku-Ji temple. It is unique in the fact that it is one of the few Chinese-built temples in Nagasaki. It is a quiet green area in an otherwise busy city and was built in 1703. Apparently the Peach theme is also quite unique and not really seen in other similar temples.

 The next temple we visited was even older and also built by the Chinese merchants in the area, it was built in in 1624. Kofuku-Ji. It provided a place for the merchants to pray for a safe voyage at sea. They also built the Megane bridge to provide easier access to the temple.

This window is a Chinese "cracked ice" lattice that is built without nails. It was originally glass that was destroyed during the Atomic bomb blast and they were unable to repair it with replacement glass. I loved this fresh picked citrus just waiting for the monk to return. 

Megane bridge or "spectacles bridge" is the oldest stone bridge in Japan and is a popular tourist stop.

We didn't get a chance to tour Deijima, but it is the little artificial island where the Dutch traders were "contained".

I love that they leave useful information for us foreigners so we know how to properly use the restroom. 

 We made a little trip out of going back to the airport for Arin and Kristina's return flight. We stopped at the reclining Buddha at the Nanzoin Temple. It is said to be the largest bronze statue in the world. It depicts Buddha at the time of his death and entering Nirvana. It is also associated with good luck with rumors that several people have won the Japanese lottery by bringing their tickets here.  Each urn sitting in front of the statue represents a day of the year, and families leave notes for their family members in the urn the represents the day of  their death.

One of the most interesting parts was entering inside the statue itself. For 500 yen you get a stick where you write your name and a wish. These wishes are then brought inside and laid at a shrine where you touch a religious rope and a representation of Buddha's feet. Attached to the rope inside the shrine is said to be actual bone and ashes from Buddha himself. This makes it a stop on a pilgrimage route that draws about a million visitors a year.  

Tossing little tokens for good luck

In the building in front of the Buddha is a funeral hall of sorts where you an pay a base fee to have your family members ashes stored for 200 years. 

We then stopped at canal city to enjoy some delicious Hakata ramen at the Ramen stadium and do some shopping.

We also made a much needed stop at Cold Stone. Eisley was very busy stealing as many spoonfuls of ice cream as she could get. Arin and Kristina made Eisley's favorite combination by far. 

We were so sad to see our visitors go, especially Eisley who was loving all the attention! We are so glad we were able to finally meet Arin and spend some time with them on this side of the world :) The best part was just being able to hang out and play games.

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Fukuoka

On our way to Tokyo, we spent the night in Fukuoka. Fukuoka is one of the major cities on the island of Kyushu (the island we live on). The base provides a free bus for the two hour ride from Sasebo to the airport. From the airport we took the Japanese subway for the first time. I was impressed with how nice and orderly it was. Since we aren't able to read the Japanese characters, it was very convenient that they had the little pictographs representing each station for us foreigners. The station near our hotel was Tenjin, represented by the five green circles in the shape of a flower. 

We came out through the east exit of the Tenjin station, which puts you in the basement of the Parco Shopping Center. We stopped and had an awesome lunch at El Borracho. I had Carne Asada which was delicious, it was fun to see the Japanese twist on Mexican food using Japanese sprouts as the veggie filler. 

The Japanese have this crazy detailed plastic food in front of most of their restaurants. They take great pride in their plastic offerings. El Borracho had a very simple three item menu, so it was easy and I'm sure they are all done to perfection. Their three choices were, beef, chicken, or vegetarian. 

Green tea AND red bean flavored Kit. 

This is an ice cream treat from 7-11. It is a crunchy cake cone wrapped around the ice cream and chocolate. 

We walked down to Canal City, which is a lovely little shopping center. They have a nice mall and hotels as well as a fountain show set to music in the canal area. 

Taking up the entire 5th floor of Canal City is a place called Ramen Stadium. They bring together a lot of the famous ramen shops and styles into one place for you to try them all. You order from automated machines in front of each restaurant. We ate at Menya Houten, famous for their distinct black Hakata ramen. Hakata Ramen is famous around Japan and has it's origins in Fukuoka city itself. 

Okinawa Sweet Potato and Strawberry Kit Kats. The strawberry Kit Kats are regional to Kyushu Island.

My first time seeing graffiti in Japan. 

Japanese cities are full of tiny streets and so many power lines!

We stumbled upon this beautiful zen temple near our hotel on accident. It is called Ankokuji and it is a Buddhist temple. It is a beautiful place to walk around and relax in the middle of a bustling city.

Here is our hotel. Hotel Mystays. The hotel was very nice, but the rooms were TINY! It was fine with us because we only really used it to sleep, but it was very space efficient. It is right in the middle of the busy Tenjin District and close to the subway and airport, so I would definitely stay there again if were were in Fukuoka for any reason. 

 That evening we walked back to the Parco shopping center to look around and have dinner. One thing interesting about the Japanese style is that the men dress very feminine. Their hair is usually 100 times prettier than mine and they like to wear capris and carry man satchels. 

I bought a bunch of french baked goods for breakfast the next day at Gontran Cherrier. Their most interesting offering was baguette noir, which is colored with squid ink and rolled in sesame. 

We had dinner at Okawara which was pretty fancy and nice. However the one interesting thing was they had a mandatory one drink per person policy. In order to order food you had to also order a drink. The drinks were $5 each and tiny, but the berry lemonade I had was delicious. We had a Margarita pizza and another interesting one. It had a garlic based white sauce, avocado, teriyaki chicken, green onion, and a cold poached egg. 

For dessert we stopped at Far East Bazaar, which features Arabian gelato made with palm syrup instead of sugar. It was so good! They also sell a lot of dried fruits and nuts which they top your gelato with. They were excited to tell us that the spelt flake cereal was dried in the winds of the desert. Fancy fancy :)

Map Links:
PARCO Shopping and Dining
Hotel MyStays
Canal City/Ramen Stadium
Ankokuji

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