Asia Mega Tour II - Fukuoka Environs Death March

We were again with our guide Moka, this time visiting two very popular places in the environs of Fukuoka. One is a town called Yanagawa which is noted for its canals and the other is Dazaifu which was is a very famous old city from around the 10th century.

We needed to meet our guide at a secondary train station, Tenjin. Fortunately we had been there on Tuesday and knew where to go to meet her...sort of. I had the bus figured out right and I actually got off at the right stop. Unfortunately, I got turned around and set off across a big road and down the main drag looking for the train station. In reality, if I had walked another 30 feet straight after getting off the bus, I would have been exactly where we needed to be. Fortunately I had given us enough time so we made it to Moka just in time for us to catch our train.

After 30 minutes and short bus ride we reached the boating area. Yanagawa was pretty cool. We are always taking these canal/river rides and always like them. We had a real character as a boat punter/guide. He was really engaging even if you didn't understand the Japanese. You will see this when I get the pictures and videos up (there were 112 of them!!! Editing and deleting is in order).

Then we had lunch there and the specialty is eel. Wife doesn't like eel so our guide had to find another place for us to eat that had other items. This turned out to be traditional Japanese which meant sitting on the floor. It was a brutal experience for Wife and I and one we don't need to repeat.

Then we took the train to Dazaifu. This has a very spectacular Shinto shrine and was mobbed with all kinds of tourists. The aftermath of of the pain of sitting on the floor plus all the additional walking meant we were both really wiped out. The coup de grace was going to the Kyushu National Museum. We can walk outside for hours but an hour in a museum seems to just do us in.

I got on the wrong bus to get us back to our apartment but miraculously it went to our exact stop anyway. That was good as we were exhausted. We went to a small place run by two very young people that had an English menu (we'd walked past it every day) and was super close to our apartment.

I got a start on going through the pictures which I'm happy to say I've cut down to 68 plus 4 videos.