Last Fukuoka day

My railpass expired (and I needed to get some exercise in anyway) so I was on foot yesterday.

I had a lovely walk to the bougie shopping area and got a coffee. A production team was shooting a commercial, so I watched that for a while. So much hurry up and wait lol.

The local art museum had some really great stuff. I saw some modern art too, which I love.

After lunch, I went down to the sumo stadium fan zone. I was trying to manifest a ticket, but that was a bust. Watching the wrestlers arrive is hilarious. They get a small round of very polite clapping as they walk by.

For some reason, watching a minivan roll up and barf out a giant man is pure entertainment.

After a sit down, i went to see the last temple on my list. Very peaceful.

Im fixing to move on to Kanazawa on Friday. Kyushu has been fun but im ready for something else.

Anish Kapoor. He’s famous for his use of pigments

Each upper division fighter has two assistants. The minivans aren’t big enough for all of them, so the assistants arrive early and just sit here. Poor guys lol

You can pay a lot of money to have your remains placed here

The first lords of fukuoka are buried here

Very famous brass frog of hakata station

Beppu

This was the last day of my rail pass, and I squeezed the heck out of it. I got an early train for the mountains and enjoyed the morning reading and looking out the window.

In beppu there isn’t much to do but relax and see some tourist stuff. Apparently, there’s some kind of animal park.

The main attraction is the “hells of beppu.”

Instead of onsen hotels, they took the hot water and created this string of hot water pools. It’s super touristy, but why not?

The shtick here is that you eat the eggs and steamed pork buns cooked with geothermal heat

Looks neat but I suspect that the effect of the steam is a bit contrived

The gardens are beautiful, and the flowers bloom out of season because of warm water

As you go down the hill, the steam pools get crappier and more tourist attraction-y.

I skipped the last 2. Instead, I walked around the little town, and it’s pretty charming.

You can get a nice steaming just walking down the street lol

After a coffee i headed back to town.

Nice day, but 5.5 hours on the train was too much.

Mojiko

After a small mishap where I shamelessly broke the law by stealing train services, I had a very nice latte and watched the birds fight over stale bread.

Kitakyushu is a largeish port city near fukuoka that has a museum I’ve been wanting to see for years. The TOTO museum isn’t a toilet museum, not exactly. But this is the first thing you see, so….

The company spent years developing the bidet part of the toilet. In the meantime, toto made dishes. This beautiful set was made for the emperor’s household

The squatty potty used to be made of wood. Nasty.

That’s 700,000 yen for just the toilet. TOTO sells prefab bathrooms, and they are beautiful

Im pretty sure it was beef, but exactly what part of the animal it was im not exactly sure. Still, very tasty.

Mojiko train station. Most of the existing buildings are western because of the trade activity.

Historically, this is the port where bananas were imported from Taiwan. There’s decent tasting banana ice cream, too

On my way home from the station, sumiyoshi shrine

Some kind of practice or ceremonial dohyo. Later a dude with a sumo wrestler hairdo was tarping it. Im sure there was a ceremony related to the tournament going on right now

Rainy day

The museums were closed, so my normal rainy day activity was impossible.

My normal backup backup plan: just get wet and take lots of coffee breaks.

I used my railpass to go to the countryside.

First up was Nanzoin. Huge old place. Buses and buses of folks but still pretty calm.

After that I rode the wrong train, so that ate up some time.

Eventually I got to the town of Dazaifu. This place was hopping for a dreary day. I shudder to think about being here on a spring day. No sakura flowers, beautiful as they are, are worth that.