When I went to sleep I crashed. Like boom crash. When I finally did wake up it was not to the sound of my alarm, so I figured that it must be early, because my alarm never fails to wake me up (turns out I set it for the wrong day). I check my clock and it says 7:44, which is kind of weird, I think to myself, because I could have sworn that my train was supposed to leave at 7:35. Then my brain finally caught up to the situation and I go into oh shit mode. I hurry and throw on some clothes grab my bags and trudge downstairs groaning in frustration. I get down and see my host father. I say sorry and that I'm in a rush and go to brush my teeth. He asks about breakfast and with a mouth full of toothpaste I tell him that I'm running late and I'm sorry there's not enough time. He then begins to throw snacks into my bag, I guess to make up for not feeding me, but after I brushed my teeth I was pretty much out the door and jogged to the station with all my crap to make it there at 8:01. I realized that the train didn't come until 8:08 so my jogging was unnecessary, but my oh no! mode warranted that I freak out and overcompensate for my fail somehow.
Thanks to our handy dandy train pass Rachel and I were able to catch the next train to Fukuoka (located on the northern part of Kyushu) After our super long train ride Rachel and I get to the place and are kind of at a loss for where to head. Neither of us had really done research on the place, but luckily I had packed the guidebook that they had given to us at school and we figured out a couple places that looked cool. But first, we were hungry.
Fukuoka is apparently supposed to have really awesome ramen (another reoccuring theme), so Rachel and I purchased an all day pass for 500 yen and hopped on a subway. When we got off the subway and out into open air we were caught in the crazy bustle of a matsuri festival. There was a parade going on and the streets were packed with people and dotted with vendors.
A bit hungry Rachel and I searched for our ramen but settled on snacking on some of the most legit takoyaki ever. It was quite delicious with an entire miniature octopus in each little dumpling. Yum. We finally settled on this one ramen restaurant. We had to wait in line to get in, but it was well worth the wait. I do enjoy my ramen. It was pretty cool inside, instead of just a counter there were stalls set up as well. Pretty neat stuff, and although the noodles were a bit lacking, the broth was so delicious it made up for it.
After lunch and a bit more parade watching Rachel and I headed to Ohori park. Basically a giant Japanese garden style park with a lake and bridges and swan boats and playgrounds and ice cream and awesomeness. We wandered around a bit and decided that we couldn't resist the temptation of a swan paddle boat, so we grabbed a number and wandered around some more and sat near the stream that ran along the perimeter of the lake and stuck our feet in. Ahhhhh relaxation. When our number was up we walked over and hopped in our paddle boat and paddled around the lake. So much fun.
Go Magikarp! Splash attack.
A picture of swan boats from the swan boat. Baller.
Thirty minutes of fun was all we had until paddling back to shore and exploring the playground a bit. There was this baller half pipe slide looking thing. Basically, yeah, it was a tame version of a half pipe and you could rock climb your way up about 10 feet to the top and slide down this bowl shaped half pipe. It was too fun to resist. So Rachel and I climbed and slid. It was actually kind of scary, but little kids are awesome in that they have absolutely no fear or reservations. I couldn't have some seven year old girl in pigtails show me up so I slid down.
Then what did we do. Oh yeah, we were boring and went to this underground shopping area and wandered around a bit. Then train (we were on time this time) back to Rachel's place where I stayed over.
And just in case you couldn't tell, I forgot to bring my camera to Tokyo (I know, rookie mistake), but I did have it in Fukuoka.
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