Fukuoka - Day 2

Recap of my trip to Fukuoka, Japan, on Sunday, 20 March 2016.

Sakura, Fukuoka Castle & Dazaifu

Today would be our first day in Fukuoka after a good night's sleep. After breakfast, we went to the park near our hosts's apartment for a picnic. Before going to the park, we walked past the street of shops and bought sushi and onigiri to eat at the potluck picnic. The weather was beautiful today, the sky was blue, the sun was shining and there was a breeze in the air. Fukuoka was cooler and windier than Seoul.

My friend and I couldn’t help hide our excitement once we reached the park. We saw sakura trees! There weren’t that many in full bloom and the flowers were white instead of the usual pink hue we see in pictures but we were nonetheless excited. We took a few pictures and then joined the picnic for a sunny afternoon meal.

After lunch, we took a short side trip to the ruins of Fukuoka castle. We lingered for a while at the remaining complete structure of one of the gates.

We then took the train to Dazaifu, a city in Fukuoka 26 km away. The train ride provided a different view to what I have seen of Japan. I had been to Tokyo and Kyoto so it was interesting to see the smaller cities in Japan.

Once we reached Dazaifu, we walked along the street which had numerous shops on either side. Since it was Sunday, it was pretty crowded with local tourists. There were many souvenir shops along the street and we went into the shops whenever we saw something interesting.

At the end of the street was a park that lead to a beautiful Shinto shrine. There was a bridge we had to cross to get to the shrine but legend has it that if a couple were to cross it, they would break up. So our hosts separated. Our Fukuoka friend decided to walk around the bridge while his wife went with us.

At the shrine, there were quite a lot of people there to offer their prayers. Inside the shrine, we could see there was an blessing ceremony going on. There were at least two families who had brought their babies to the shrine. We saw the priest bless the infants. Most shrines have boxes to collect alms but this shrine had a whole area before the entrance to the shrine to collect coins.

The sun was setting so we decided to head back. I soaked in the beautiful surrounding of the shrine as we headed back to the street with the shops. We stopped to eat hot glutinous rice cake that was quite nice at one of the shops.

Back at the apartment, we had sushi we had bought from the neighbourhood supermarket on our way back. It may have been supermarket fare but it was good! And the portion we bought was just nice. Our Fukuoka friend has the cutest dog. She would wait near the dinner table at each meal, hoping to get food. Her absolute cuteness means that she almost always will get food. She also loves bread. I've never met another dog that liked bread so much!

After dinner, my friend and I were introduced to Archer.