Category: Japan Spring 2025

In our never ending quest to see All The Castles we made two day trips while in Fukuoka.

First up was Karatsu. We took the train south from Fukuoka – actually into the next prefecture. It was a basic commuters train – we got on the subway and eventually the train came above ground and wandered down the coast to Karatsu.

Wilf had scoped out a restaurant in the old town near the train station, so that was the first order of business. It opened at 11:30 and we arrived at 11:45 – put our name on the list for the 12:30 sitting.

The restaurant is tiny, run by a husband and wife team. Your choice is a seafood rice bowl set menu – the only difference is in the fanciness of the seafood. We went for the super deluxe because – why not? It was amazing!!!!

The set meal pretty much always includes the main course, a bowl of miso soup, pickles, often a salad of some sort. And so this did. The bowl of seafood was amazing – so many good things. As I was eating my way along I was thinking about how things have changed. When we first came to Japan in 2009 my seafood tastes were pretty limited. Faced with a bowl like this I would have been hesitant. Now – dive right in. I didn’t know what everything was, but it was all delicious.

From the restaurant we took a cab to the castle in the harbour. It was very hot and we were happy to find there was an elevator to take us up to the entry to the castle. Often castles are on high points – which makes sense, but this one was originally on the water’s edge. It was destroyed at one point and has since been rebuilt. Over time the harbour has been extended, so the site is now a bit inland. But originally the castle foundation rose out of the sea, providing defence on that side. A series of moats and trenches protected the other sides.

The exhibits inside were interesting, showing the history of the area. Not surprisingly, they were whalers, and there were interesting drawings and paintings of how they went out in small boats to capture whales. I’m reading ‘Moby Dick’ at present, so have whales on the brain!

Castle number two was in the city of Kitakyushu, which is north of Fukuoka. One stop on the Shinkansen. Zoom zoom – about 15 minutes, mostly through tunnels. Kokura Castle is another castle that has been rebuilt. Kitakyushu is a large city at the tip of Kyushu Island. The modern city is an amalgamation of smaller cities, including Kokura. It was a prosperous place, ruled over by generations of the same family and a major stopping point on the way to the capital. Back in the day the Shogun required the samurai lords to spend alternate years in Edo (now Tokyo). Kokura was positioned at the top of the island and traffic would cross the Kanmon straits to Honshu on the way to Edo.

In the late 19th century the castle was pulled down, and the current replica was created in the 1960’s. We have visited several castles that are intact from the samurai times, and they are interesting. But there is something to be said for the reconstructions….. No ladders between floors, for one thing! The exhibits were really interesting and interactive.

Yabusame is horse mounted archery. I tried sitting on the horse but decided my dignity probably would not survive if I rode the pony and tried to fire ‘arrows’. Kind of like a slow motion bull riding with less twisting. This fellow did well – he ‘fired’ the arrows and hit the targets….

It’s a pretty castle and, again, must be lovely when the cherry trees are in bloom.

On the way to the castle we crossed a bridge over the river that was decorated with….

A long row of statues with penne heads? The mosaic underfoot is a sunflower motif, ,the official flower of the city.

And there was a tiny little fish market – the Tannga Market.

Two day trips, two interesting and historic towns.

Greetings, dear ones. Yes, Wilf and I are in Japan. And yes, we’ve been uncommonly silent. Usually when we get to Japan we hit the ground running and do all the things. This time around – we’re tired! Jet lag has been a thing. But, we’ve been out and about between the eating and the sleeping and the napping.

We flew from Vancouver to Tokyo – as usual Japan Airlines was wonderful. When we were here in 2012 we went to the city of Fukuoka. Our goal was to go to a sumo wrestling tournament, which we did. And it was great. It was, however, November and the weather was wet and chilly. We agreed that we had not seen the city that well and decided a do-over was in order.

Most international flights (especially from North America) arrive at Narita airport, north of Tokyo. Domestic flights in Japan usually fly from Haneda airport, south of Tokyo. Usually we take a train into the city, but the instructions for the transfer from Narita to Haneda seemed a bit confusing, so we took the Expressway bus. It was fabulous. Straight there in less than an hour, passed by Disney and other things to see along the way. We were dropped at Terminal 2, which turned out to be a small oops, as our hotel was at Terminal 3. No problem, the airport shuttle had us over to the other terminal right quick and it was a shortish walk to our hotel in the adjacent building.

This was our first experience at a hotel right at the airport and it was great. The Villa Fontaine Premier was very new and very luxe. In addition to restaurants in the hotel there was a shopping complex below with every kind of food. And on the top floor – a spa!

The spa was lovely with multiple baths at different temperatures. There was even an outdoor bath. I gave that a try, but…. Let’s say Haneda is one of the windiest places I’ve been. I got out the door and across the decking and into the bath. Sitting there amidst the whitecaps I thought ‘why am I doing this? This is not fun.’ As I was getting out, the door flew open and a tiny elderly Japanese woman popped out. I believe I heard the Japanese version of ‘Oh, hell no’ and the two of us wrest the door back open and retreated to the calm indoors.

In the morning we returned to terminal 2 and flew to Fukuoka, which is on the island of Kyushu, directly south of Honshu, the main Japanese island. The airport is two stops on the subway from the main train station for the city. And our hotel was across the street from the train station.

I have mentioned before about the wonders, and terrors, of Japanese train stations. How you can take the wrong exit and literally be hundreds of meters from where you want to be (I’m looking at you, Shinjuku station). Or, you can inadvertently take the west exit rather than the east exit and have a devil of a time finding your way to where you want to be. The station is built around the regular train and Shinkansen tracks, and has all these department stores accreted to it around the edges. Poor old Google maps has a hard time giving directions in the maze that is the area.

Once we got to the east side of the station there was our hotel big as day – in fact if we had taken the correct exit from the subway we would have wound up in the basement level of our hotel.

The Miyako Hotel is another beautiful hotel. We were on the 10th floor with view west over the train station. On the top floor as an indoor bath as well as an outdoor swimming pool and lounge area. We enjoyed the baths before bed time and sat in the lounge area in the afternoons.

Being near the train station there were lots of places to eat – lots of breakfast places ranging from the homey to the uber hip.

So – we left home on a Thursday and it was Sunday by the time we arrived at Fukuoka. All our connections worked and that was a relief.

Next up I’ll tell you what we did in Fukuoka… (here’s a sneak preview..)