Day Two in Fukuoka

First order of business on our second day at Fukuoka was to find Ohori Park and the Japanese Garden. We had a handy map of the main areas in Fukuoka that showed us the way. What this map lacked was a scale and after endless walking and crossing two rivers we were wondering if we were even close to it. We tried asking for directions but it didn't help since I was able to ask but not able to understand the directions. We did understand when he said "walking?". We knew we were a long ways away. After an hour of walking we stopped for lunch since we didn't know how much longer we had. Another half hour later we saw a sign that guided us to Ohori park. The Japanese gardens were worth the hour and a half walk. When we first got there, we were the only ones in them so we had a lot of time to take these wonderful pictures. Here are some of them, if you want to see tons more click on Our Yahoo! Photos link.








Next on our to do list was to find the Fukuoka Costco. We knew it was a little ways away so we took the subway until the end of the line and took a taxi from there. Twenty-three dollars later we were in the middle of nowhere; suburbia with a giant Costco in the middle of it.

I was specifically looking for scrapbook albums, a couple of familiar food items and also wanted to take advantage of the cheap photo center. We had no luck with the scrapbook albums but we did find some macaroni and cheese and parmesan cheese and were able to print our digital pics really cheap. The mac n' cheese we got because it is non-existant in Japanese supermarkets and the parmesan was so cheap compared to supermarkets here. We did realize how much you need a car to shop at a place like this. These are pretty much the only things that we could carry. It must have looked pretty funny to see us walking around with this giant box of mac n cheese on the trains.....such foreigners! Nick really wanted to buy some of the frozen foods such as chicken patties and chimichangas but without a car or a cooler we were unable to do so.

(Guess what we had for lunch today...yummy!)

We had dinner at Costco's quality food stand. Dinner consisted of a hot dog, a slice of pizza and ice cream for each of us. I think everyone was staring at us and placing bets to see if we would eat it all, which we did (except for the bad part of the pizza).
After our large dinner we decided to head on to the train station and call it a day. It was a great weekend trip. I'm sure we'll be back soon.

One Heluva Birthday!

To celebrate both of our birthdays we headed to Fukuoka (aka Hakata). Fukuoka is the nearest “big city” to Sasebo. It has been recommended numerous times by our students as the best place to go shopping. Since we were told there was no home baseball game, we had no specific plans. We just decided to go for a change in scenery.
There was an 80% chance of rain for our first day in Fukuoka and it rained indeed. However it was light enough that it didn’t deter us from walking to Fukuoka Tower. At 234 meters, it is the tallest seaside tower in Japan and also the symbol of Fukuoka. It has an observation floor at 123 meters.

Nick and I were both surprised by the strange feeling we had in the elevator. Since the building is hollow we were able to see all the beams that make up the infrastructure on our way up and it didn’t make us feel so good in our tummies.

I mentioned to the ticket counter staff that it was my birthday and it turns out there’s no entrance fee on your birthday. I even got a postcard as my gift.

The view was not spectacular, visibility was short due to the weather, but we got to see where the Yahoo! Dome (where the baseball games are held) was. That was our next stop, "Hawks Town". We wanted to visit the Dome and checkout the schedule for home games for the Softbank Hawks (Japanese Professional Baseball team, and 2005 Champions). Notice how in Japan the name of the city is not part of the baseball team's name, instead it's the sponsor...SoftBank. Adjacent to the Dome there's "Hawks Town" which consists of two malls and to our surprise one Toys R' Us and one Hard Rock Cafe. We knew we had to have dinner there to continue tradition. Nick hit the Toys R' Us in search of a "Vortex" football (hey Tim!) while I went clothes shopping. After a couple of hours of walking around we went to dinner at Hard Rock. We were overwhelmed by the menu and wanted to overload on familiar food. We finally opted for the Herb Grilled Chicken with caramelized onions served on top of garlic mashed potatoes and I had the grilled BBQ salmon served with garlic mashed potatoes and BBQ beans. Needless to say we stuffed ourselves.
On our way out of Hard Rock I noticed that there seemed to be a small crowd going towards the Dome. We both looked at each other like, "Could there possibly be a game tonight?". As we made our way to the escalator we were stopped by a "ticket scalper" who offered us two tickets. With my broken Japanese we were able to score two tickets, original price 5300 Yen each, for 5000 Yen total (nice savings!). We had no idea where the seats where or if the tickets were even real.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that our seats were actually great. Regardless of our great seats, we were thrilled just to be inside.
During the game we started noticing a few differences from games back home. We were surprised to see people with kegs on their backs selling draft beer without you having to leave your seats...what a concept! Also interesting is the fact that they don't price-gouge for beer. We will try to find out if we can get our hands on one of these backpacks to take home with us.

Another interesting addition was the crowd chanting to the beat of large Japanese drums and brass instruments in right field. Most notable, however, was their form of a 7th-inning stretch. Instead of stretching and singing "Take me out to the ball game", everyone buys long yellow balloons and uses them as part of a chant.

At the end of the chant there's a countdown on the big screen and they all let their balloons go at the same time.

Since the Hawks won there was a victory chant at the end followed by the release of white balloons, dancing cowgirl cheerleaders, and finally indoor fireworks. This was a great end to our plan-free Birthday!

A Night in Sailor Town

A couple of weeks ago we met up with Greg, a fellow Floridian from Stuart, and he took us barhopping around “Sailor Town”. We ended up at “Anchor” which is a sister bar to “Playmate”, the usual hangout. Since the ships are in, we were completely surrounded by sailors. As soon as we walked into the bar, we were greeted by a Navy guy who we had met earlier that night and he asked if we had ever had a special type of Shochu (we forgot the name already). When we said No, we knew we were in trouble. I tried to avoid it by running to the bathroom to hide but it was waiting for me when I came out. A shot of the “snake shochu”. This Shochu (shochu is sake made from sweet potatoes) is originally from Okinawa and the snake inside the jar is a poisonous one….that’s all we know. Nick and I both took the shot although he faired it better than me. I swear I could taste the snake!

Coincidentally later that same night Naomi (Australian who had emailed us letting us know she’d be vacationing in Sasebo) and her friends walked in the bar. We ended up staying until they literally kicked us out at around 4:30am. This was our first encounter with Navy security due to an incident that occurred that night. Apparently a “white looking” man broke a window in town and the Navy was informed so that they could patrol, secure and keep their men in check to see if they could find out who did it. In Japan guns are illegal so we were very surprised when a group of Navy security officers walked into the bar with weapons. Needless to say I was a little scared but apparently this is routine for them. As we walked out of the bar, we were met by a lineup of these same officers who waited and accounted for all their men coming out of the bar to make sure no fights broke out, I guess.

We apologize for the lack of updates lately, however we hope to have some more in a few days. Yesterday we celebrated Nick's Birthday at a new bar.....what an experience that was! We'll have to explain it later.
This Wednesday/Thursday we are going to Fukuoka, the big city, to celebrate our birthdays together. We were hoping that we could see a baseball game but there are no home games this week so it'll have to be another time. We hope to do some shopping and I'll be searching for a nearby COSTCO's. I know that doesn't sound like much to you all but we're looking forward to it.
Also, I started Salsa lessons last week. It was so much fun. The room was full. Apparently there's a Salsa wave coming through Japan and it's the new "it" thing to do. The teachers are Japanese but they have lived in almost every Spanish speaking country there is and speak fluent Spanish. They lived in Cuba for a few years so they are teaching us Cuban style Salsa.

For the next month or so we have a few trips planned already so stay tuned.

Hello Again

On Sunday we had yet another welcome party. This one was for the new Japanese staff member, Yumi. This time around there was a little pressure on Nick because the staff wanted him to actually eat (recall the ‘fish head’ restaurant). They figured they couldn’t go wrong with “Yakiniku” which they refer to as 'indoor BBQ'. Basically Yakiniku is similar to fondue but with a grill in the middle of the table rather than a pot. There is a vegetable bar so you can pick out veggies to grill with your meat. It was an all you can eat, all you can drink affair as usual. One particular thing that struck us as interesting is that in the US when there’s an all you can eat buffet there’s a lot of waste. In this case, you pay a flat fee for your meal & drinks and it’ll keep coming until you can’t eat anymore. However, you cannot order another drink until you’ve finished your current one and you can’t order another plate of food until you’ve eaten everything on the table. This keeps the waste of food down to a minimum. IF there’s a considerable amount of food leftover on your plate at the end of the night then you are charged for it. I can honestly say I’ve never eaten so much meat in my life. As usual, the Japanese women went to work on their food. At the end of the night, they all sneaked “souvenirs” into their purses for late night snacks and breakfast. The longer we stayed, the more they took. Below is a picture of Natsuko’s purse at the end of the night.

After dinner we all went to karaoke. This was our first time going karaoke with the Japanese staff. They could sing so much better than we could. It’s like they’ve had years and years of practice and they’ve perfect it. They were able to sing both Japanese and English songs very well.

Like Moths to a Flame

Our wish was fulfilled today. Those of you who know us understand that we have a slight addiction to Taco Bell. We were finally hooked up with a sailor who was willing to take us to "make a run for the border". Nick ordered 4 tacos and I ordered a taco, burrito supreme and an Enchirito! They tasted just like home. We're FULL!
The base was like a "little America". We even had to exchange our Yen back to US dollars to pay for our dinner. It felt surreal to be instantly surrounded by Americans who were going about their daily routines.

Hanami Party

Trevor, Jason, Brendan, Mike, me and Nick

Last Sunday we had a Hanami Party. Hanami means flower watching (Hana=flower, mi=look) so we went to a park close by to have a barbecue under the cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom so it really was a pretty sight except that none of the pictures came out because it was at night.
Hanami Parties are very common during this time of year. The Japanese tradition is to go to the park to admire the cherry blossoms while eating snacks and drinking "Shoshu" (Japanese Sake). This translates to a group of young drunken Japanese walking around. Nick spent most of the time talking to one of these young guys who was pretty drunk. His pants looked like they were going to come down at any moment. We don't know if he meant for the pants to be under his butt but at one point I just couldn't take it anymore so I asked Miki how to say "pull your pants up" and she told me to say "Pants agete". I yelled it out to him and it worked, he pulled his pants up and everyone clapped! By the way if you want to know what pants down is it's "pants sagete"...easy to remember.

Motomi and Miki having fun with Pringles

The whole time we were at the BBQ we were sitting on the comforter part of a futon. At the end of the picnic when everyone was packing up Trevor said that we were sitting on his futon. We couldn't believe he brought his actual sleeping futon....I thought it was an extra one!
What was even funnier was that he was carrying it all the way to the bar where we went afterwards. He looked like a homeless man.

It did come in handy later on that night when Jason (the head teacher at Nova) fell from his barstool at 'Playmate'. We put the futon behind his chair just in case he would fall again.

At 'Playmate' we did our usual karaoke. Late in the evening, Brendan chose to sing "Can't help falling in love with you" during which Nick actually volunteered to dance. As a reminder, that is our wedding song.

A Day in Hollanda

On our day off last week we decided to go to Huis Ten Bosch.
Huis Ten Bosch is the largest theme park in Japan. It was built, in 1992, as a replica of parts of Amsterdam, Holland (Imagine Epcot Center but with only one country). During spring months they have a Tulip festival where they replace all the flowers in the park with over 250 types of tulips. We had never seen so many flowers! It was absolutely beautiful.

We almost didn't get any pictures because as soon as we entered the park we noticed that the battery on our camera was dying. We ended up purchasing a disposable camera but also I remembered that we could take pictures with our cell phone. Surprisingly, the pictures on the cell phone (the 1st pic in the post) turned out much clearer than the ones from the disposable camera (the pic with us together).

It is very different from the parks in Orlando, FL. I guess there is a difference between a theme park and an amusement park. Huis Ten Bosch is very themed but not much of an amusement park since it doesn't have any major rides. It mostly consists of shops, restaurants, and museums.
They had a "World Bazaar" market showcasing foods, drinks and entertainment from around the world. We caught the Mexican show and the Can Can girls. We thought the Mexican performers were actually from Mexico. However, the Can Can girls all looked American and not French.

Since Holland is known for their cheese, most shops sold a variety of cheeses and/or cheesecakes. I bought a small cheesecake because the taste was very different from cheesecake in the US. It was not as creamy but it was definitely cheesier. It's great to have with wine.

Dom Tower, at a height of over 300 feet, lies in the middle of the park. It is modeled after a famous tower somewhere in Amsterdam, and stands as the symbol of Huis Ten Bosch.

We took the elevator up to the observation deck in Dom Tower and got this great bird's eye view of the park. The rows of homes across the water are actually private residences. It's like a little piece of Holland in Japan. Notice the windmills in the middle left of the picture and the Huis Ten Bosch Hotel in the upper left.

We stuck around to see the nightly fireworks show at 9pm, which was much better than we expected. It featured music from around the world, and consisted of a variety of fireworks.