Asia Mega Tour II - Yanagawa Pictures

I decided that I had way too many pictures from the visit to Yanagawa and Dazaifu to put into one post. So we'll start with Yanagawa.

Much like Airport World and Train Station World or Metro/Subway World, there exists a Canal/Inner Waterway World. Doesn't make any difference if you do it in the Netherlands, in the US, in Italy, in Vietnam, or in Japan, there is a similarity to all these towns and city that have inland waterways that have become tourist attractions. Yanagawa is the Kyushu, Japan version.

Folks here want you to know that that "You Are Welcome"

Even hungry eels are welcome in Yanagawa

Yes, there are two things you need to know about Yanagawa

Boat Punters and Eels

Here we are at the place where we will get our boat. It's a pretty quiet time of the season. Things must be a madhouse when it gets warmer.

Your Canal World experience is totally dependent upon your boat punter.

We totally lucked out.

This guy was just incredibly entertaining. 

 He went non-stop the whole hour we were on the boat.

Even though we didn't understand any of it other than what our guide translated, his sheer enthusiasm was infectious. I had to take multiple videos to really capture the experience.

Then there were all the bridges that were just barely over water level that we went under. I wonder what happens when there are floods!

Our guy also sang various folk and children's songs to us

Scenes from along the canal

Figures

People

A man drawing

The owner of the 'float through' snack shop

Lots of blooming plum and cherry trees

Buildings and the waterway

Fishing nets

Why are all the eels that are to be eaten look so happy?

Local decorations

Gastronomy

What do you think Wife about eel for lunch?

Is it like trout?

Uh no

Okay we have the non-eel option

For the rest of us, the eel was just like the Unagi you get as sushi

And of course - Signs of the World

Not sure this is how we'd translate this

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.