April Activities - Yanagawa - Dazaifu - Zoo

Once again there's a bit of a delay in updates of things going on so I'm cramming all of April's activities into one. Luckily there weren't that many because Wes and I went to Korea.

Yanagawa - Tuesday 2nd April

Yanagawa is a town close to Fukuoka city which I've been to 5 years ago. It's famous for it's canals, eel (which is delicious), and it's girl's festival decorations. Unfortunately it was horrible weather and we all got pretty soaked despite us all carrying umbrellas. First things first we visited a shop that sold the girls festival decorations. There's a tradition in Japan that when a girl is born in the family you buy these decorations (I think when she's 5) and put them up for show in February (or all year round). It's supposed to make the girl live a long healthy life. There's one decoration that's a hanging mobile consists of 52 balls and toys (one for each year of your life. This was an old tradition, I don't know if people were expected to live longer than 52). Another common decoration is one of an emperor and princess sitting on the top with their court below them, but I don't know the cultural significance of these. I just know that they're incredibly expensive. We visited a number of houses that had huge rooms of these decorations. Including one which was an open house and for 6 generations the grandmother would hand make all the decorations whenever a girl in the family was born. Resulting in the largest and oldest display of Hinamatsuri decorations in Yanagawa (it even appeared on TV).

We also visited an incredibly old European/Japanese house in the town. Half of it was Japanese style and the other was like an upper-class British house. It was really surreal. And even this house had a huge display of Hinamatsuri decorations! 

Daizaifu - Tuesday 16th April

So it was back to Dazaifu again, but this time with the school! We pretty much did everything we did before, go to the temple over the bridges and get fortunes (this time I got supper luck!). We went and got Umegaimochi, the anko filled cooked mochi (was so good), and went to the national museum (which we didn't do before). We actually didn't see much of the museum because we had to pay to see the exhibitions  so we just played around the area next to the gift shop that allows you to play with objects from other cultures. We did learn how to make pretty korean knots though!

(Wesley was best at making the Korean knots...even better than the girls...)

Zoo - Tuesday 23rd April

Fukuoka has it's own gardens and zoo with an assortment of pretty flowers and animals. It's actually divided into two sections so we went to the gardens first which was great because it was the perfect time for flowers! They had garden flowers, a rose garden (a bit early for that) and a huuuuge green house full of tropical plants.

The zoo was pretty impressive but not at the same time. There was a large variety of animals including tigers, lions, dear, snakes, lizards, red pandas, penguins, bears, a rhino, a giraffe, monkeys,  a petting area with rabbits and guinea pigs and ducks, and all kinds of birds. But most of the cages were small and concrete and there were often only 1 or 2 animals making it seem quite lonely. I always forget the difference in animal rights and welfare between Japan and the UK until I see things like this. They weren't living in horrible conditions (like Chinese zoos) but I felt they weren't as good as the UK.

(Red Panda's are so cute! In Japanese they're called "Lesser Pandas"

The place was also full of middle school children so as we walked along we'd often get people shouting "hello!" and even got our photos taken with a group of them! (They asked us, not the other way around). 

Climbing Houmanzan

So I mentioned before the chatting salon which Wes and I got to meet a few people through. One person Wes met the first time we went invited us on a hike up a mountain with a bunch of people which was on the 23rd March. We'd cycled a lot on this trip and I'd walked up hills before but wasn't really expecting the kind of mountain we faced that day...

We all met outside the Dazaifu station at 11am, not an early start but they did say not to be late. Despite that people were late and we finally set out at about 11:40. There were about 11 of us in total, 5 foreigners and 6 Japanese guys. Myself and a Chinese girl were the only girls there. When we arrived one of the guys had a small drum which he was playing with. Once everyone arrived we had to get the bus to the shrine at the base of the mountain. It was still sakura season so the cherry trees were still in bloom.

So I said I hadn't expected what we got on that hike. When we started it said 2km to the top. The mountain is only 850ish metres tall but taking into account that you can't walk vertically the route was about 2km. That's fine, I thought, I've walked that before. But not up hill. Not even "up hill" I'd say the hike was more "up boulders" the whole way. Someone (I'm guessing a very long time ago) decided to make it easier for people who wish to walk up the mountain by putting steps in. Imagine each step being 3 times the size of a normal stair step and that's the kind of steps I'm talking about. We were basically doing knee-ups for 2 and a half hours straight. Allow me to show you...

Ok, so it wasn't massive steps ALL the way up the mountain. At the beginning there were reasonable sized steps like the ones bellow but after a couple of hours I was knackard. I think there was about 5 different points when I thought we'd reached the top. It was like the final Lord of the Rings all over again "How many endings does this mountain have!? WHEN WILL IT END!?"

What makes it even more ridiculous was the number of elderly people climbing up and down this thing faster than we were, and even a number of people jogging it!

But we did finally reach the top! First things first was sit down and food! Now despite the fact it is was a beautiful sunny day from the top of the mountain we couldn't see very far. This may have been because of the fact that we were too high or because of the pollution from China. The view at parts (of things closer to us) was still pretty impressive though.

After lunch and rest and group pic (on Wes' camera) we began climbing down the mountain. Faster but equally tricky as with each large bolder you step off you have to support your body's weight on one leg. Needless to say we were even more exhausted by the end...or at least some of us were....

My legs were hurting for another 3 days after...at least it's good practice for a weeks worth of hiking in Korea including 2 trips up a mountain!

*BTW it may sound like I'm complaining but I had a lot of fun and met a lot of really nice people. I'd defiantly be up for doing it again....just maybe a different mountain.

Adventures with Friends (Dazaifu)

The week after we met Eiji and Erika we arranged to meet up with another Japanese guy called Naoya. It was cold and raining and when I saw a burger place for lunch that's what we did. I think we spent over an hour and a half in there talking with Naoya about games, language, anime and just random stuff. Then afterwards we went to an arcade and played a few games. Although it was a short afternoon we soon met up with Naoya the following weekend (16th Feb)

Dazaifu

So Dazaifu Tenmangu is a pretty famous shrine in Fukuoka (I'd been once before 5 years ago but not since) so allow me to give you some background on the shrine. There was a man called Sugawara no Michizane who was a court scholar around the 870s who's specialities was literature and poetry, and later became ambassador to the Tang Dynasty (China), Consultant and held  a number of other positions in court. Due to political struggles he was stripped of his positions in 901 and exiled from Kyoto and moved to Dazaifu until he died in 902. After his death there were a number of disasters hit Kyoto including storms, drought, diseases etc. So thinking these we the cause of the angry spirit of Sugawara the court re-installed his name and eventually made him the Shinto god Tenjin, and because Sugawara was a scholar people all over Japan now go to Tenjin shrines to pray for good test results. You may have noticed Tenjin is the name of the shopping district in Fukuoka, that's because Sugawara stayed there for a bit before going onto Dazaifu. Also in Dazaifu is apparently one of the oldest plum trees in Japan which Sugawara was said to have brought with him from Kyoto (now the shrine are full of plum trees). I also found out that plums were brought over from China so I imagine Sugawara must have picked them up on his travels to China as an ambassador.

(Me and Wes infront of Sugawara's plum tree)

So I digress, Wes, Naoya, Naoya's friend Kou and myself all went to Dazaifu on a sunny Saturday in Naoya's car. First things first I had to try one of the hot ume gae mochi that were being sold all over the town. They're baked mochi (gewy riceflour) with anko (azuki beans) in the middle and a plum imprinted on the top. I burnt my tongue >< but they were really good!!!

(Me with an ume gae mochi)

We then headed up to the shrine itself which was full of people! And although it was the weekend a TON of school kids. But it is the exam season so I guess that makes sense. I actually got an omamori (a protection/good fortune amulet) from the shrine for study.
Before you reach the main shrine is 3 bridges which are (Kou told me) supposed to be the past, present and future, and it is apparently bad luck to look back as you cross them because it means you're too focuses on the past and not enough on the future.

(Wes and Naoya getting off the bridge of the future~~)

After wandering around the shrine we ended up wandering up this hill/mountain behind it to an Inari shrine (a fox shrine) and then got slightly lost. But the walk was good and we talked about all kinds of stuff.
Once we'd made it back to town we were pretty hungry so went exploring for food. Most of the restaurants were packed though except for this one Korean place which was great cos I'd smelt it as we were walking into town. As long as it's not spicy Korean food is really nomable!

(Omnomnom Korean foods)

We explored the town a little more after that including a small temple but it was getting late and we were pretty tired so headed off home.
But that wasn't the last time we saw Naoya...

Manly Australian Cafe

We couldn't think of what to do with Naoya so asked him to invite some of his friends and we'd all go karaokeing/gaming. Unfortunately only one of his friend's were free so on Tuesday 26th Feb we met up with Naoya and his friend Ayana who he's studied with in Canada for a year. They took us to an Australian cafe called "Manly" in the back streets of Tenjin. We didn't order much but I think spent over 2 hours in there talking about random stuff (including shocking Ayana a bit by how geeky the 3 of us were), and even met by chance a mutual friend of theirs who was there to ask the cafe owner for advice for going abroad. It seems like that was how Naoya and Ayana knew the cafe too. The owner seems to be an Aussi-phile and enjoys giving other people advice on going abroad, but not just to Australia. He was an interesting guy. Although we were only there for drinks we decided we'd go back for dinner some time cos they had kangaroo, crocodile and ostridge on the menu! Omnomnomnom

Fingers crossed more plans will be made with Naoya soon, but in the mean time Wes and I are making plans with other new people we've met through the language exchange site and with our new classmates. More on that later :)