Our Japan trip (part 1- Hakata/Fukuoka)

Our trip to Japan was awesome! Japan is beautiful and friendly. We wished we had had more time to see more of the countryside and visit some other cities. I would love to go back someday and see some more!
On Feb 25, we headed to Busan to spend the night there and get an early start on trying to find the ferry terminal and get things all in order. It ended up turning out okay. We found a nice motel near Busan station where we stayed the night. We were only a few blocks away from the ferry terminal.
We got all our stuff ready in a hurry that day and when we arrived in Busan we realized we had forgot the most important carry-on. We had forgotten our porrage and granola bars! NOOOO!!!! We had planned to use the porrage in the mornings for breakfast and to get us going earlier, and the granola bars to keep us going in between meals. Well, we didn’t bring them so we had to deal with it. Chris and I tried to find some substitutes, but failed miserably. You can’t get instant porrage or granola bars anywhere other than Costco or maybe Walmart. So we were out of luck on that one. We’d have to make due with the rice cakes, cookies, and other junk food we brought along.
In the morning we found the ferry terminal with little difficulties. We were there a bit too early actually and had to wait before we could check in. During that time, Chris and I were able to find some pancake-like bread things and some buns to bring along on our tours. They were actually pretty good. And we still had 4 peanut butter and jam sandwiches!
The ferry ride was a 3 hour trip to Fukuoka Japan. It was a little rocky and swayed a bit, but not too bad for a small boat that goes 80km/hr on the water.
When we arrived in Fukuoka we had no idea what to do. We couldn’t read anything and we couldn’t find any information booths that were open. So we decided to take a taxi to Hakata Station. We had heard that there was a great English speaking tourist booth there. So we jumped in the taxi. Chris almost opened the driver’s side door to get in, forgetting that Japan is backwards. They drive on the other side of the road and the other side of the car! Awkward for us. Something we could never really get our minds around, it always felt awkward.
Taxi’s in Japan start at 590 yen and up. That’s about the same as back home I think. 590 yen is equal to $5.90. It’s a fairly equal exchange in numbers, just move the decimal point over 2.
When we got to Hakata Station it was cluttered with people. It was packed! We found out from the lady at the info booth that there was a big university entrance exam in Fukuoka that weekend and every single hotel was booked! We were a little worried about that. We took some time talking with the travel agency to try and book a motel for the next night before it was too late. We decided not to. The tourist info lady gave us another option that sounded appealing to us. There was a free shuttle bus to a hot spa nearby. You could stay the night at the spa in a recliner chair. We jumped on that one! It turned out to be so good that we stayed both nights there! It was sweet! For $35 bucks each (comparable to a lower end motel for one person) we got to use the spa and pamper ourselves all night and sleep in a recliner chair with our own personal television. There were a few American TV shows on that we could watch too! It was awesome! Showers, tubs, saunas, hot tubs, cold tubs, massage chairs, and TV recliners were all part of the deal! Nice...
Early the first morning we headed out on the city. Most of the sites were in walking distance from the Station. We went to a few parks and some shrines that were nearby. Many of these places were closed on Sundays but we were able to see inside anyway. The parks were beautiful and the shrines were spectacular! One of the highlights for all of us was going to Ohori Park. It’s a giant park with a lake in the middle. The park was so big we didn’t have the time to walk the entire thing. But the highlight of this park was the Japanese Garden on the one end of it. We were blown away by the beauty of this place. It was so well laid out with walkways, trees, a pond in the middle, waterfalls, flowers, birds, and just a sense of calm. It was so peaceful and beautiful. We really were awestruck and took many pictures. We could imagine how much more beautiful it could be in the summer when all the trees and flowers are in bloom.

Next we stopped at some castle ruins. It was a bit of a hike around the walls and up to the top. It was quite beautiful when we eventually got there. There were some nice pink and white flowered trees on the pathways. Chris and I tried to climb the stone walls, but it was slippery since it was sprinkling rain at the time.
Later we went on a long walk to the botanical and zoological gardens. We thought it would be a short walk, but found out that the map was definitely not to scale. But we made it nonetheless. First we went to take a look at the botanical gardens. The gardens were structurally beautiful but many of the trees and plants were not in bloom considering it was still winter season. But there were a few that had already taken bloom. We were a little disappointed at first that we couldn’t see all the flowers in bloom, but it was still quite beautiful.
Our disappointment vanished when we came across the indoor flower gardens. Inside there were tons of flowers in bloom. All the flowers and trees that we couldn’t see outside were in full bloom inside this greenhouse garden. It was amazing! There was a small pathway taking us through trees, plants, flowers, and over bridges. It was gorgeous! I’m not a big flower guy, but this was amazing! It’s hard to explain it, but it was peaceful and beautiful (see more pictures in my links).
We spent some time in the zoo. We had already seen many of these animals in the Calgary zoo, but there were a few we hadn’t seen. We saw a black panther, a tiger, a lion, penguins, a rhino, a giraffe, a Japanese black bear, ostriches, flamingos, badgers, monkeys, and a bunch of other animals. It was cool. Chris climbed over a few fences to get some good shots of the animals. I think he got a really good up close of the lion.
At some point in the middle of this sight seeing, we were getting hungry. We ran into a foreigner and asked him where a good place to eat was. Without thinking he pointed us to a ramen place. Ramen is Japanese noodles. He said that Hakata is famous for its ramen. We were up for that, he said it was a "killer bowl of soup". How could it be bad? We found our way there no problem and found ourselves in a 15-20 minute lineup for this "famous ramen". I wasn't sure if it was worth it but we decided to wait it out anyway. And it is a good thing we did. It was unreal! It was "killer!". It was the best bowl of noodle soup I have ever eaten by far! It was a pork noodle soup. Christine and I got the one with 6 slices of pork inside for $9 bucks a bowl. Chris opted for another feature on the menu. We loved our soups! It was incredible! Well worth the wait! I couldn't stop talking about how amazing that soup was for the rest of the day. Wow!
It was getting late by the time we made our way to Canal City. This is a place where people hang out at night. We were in an area that had some great nightlife. The Canal ran right in between the buildings there. And there was an amazing symphony fountain there. The fountain danced along with the symphony music. It was really neat! It had fan-like fountains that sprayed to the music. It was quite nice. They even had a street performer do some tricks on the stage in the middle of the water. It was quite a treat for us. . . and so were the Wendy’s burgers we had shortly after. Ya, we didn’t dive into the Japanese food right away. It was so good to eat a nice Crispy Chicken burger again!
The rest of the night we wandered around Canal City. We stopped at an HMV and looked for a good Japanese CD we could listen to while we were driving to Hiroshima the next day. We didn’t pick one out though, not until later on in the trip.
We enjoyed ourselves just wandering around until it was time to catch our bus back to the spa. We enjoyed another relaxing time there for the night. The next day we would be picking up our rental car we had booked previously and take the highway to Hiroshima. Exciting!