Day seven

Today was mainly a travel day. First, an hour-long local train to a train station with a Shinkansen stop, and then the Shinkansen directly to Fukuoka.

I was thinking about taking local trains instead, but it would take 9 hours more at least, and lots of transfers. And while the views are better, I suspect I would have slept most of the way anyway.

If you think the Shinkansen offers great views, then you’re mostly wrong. Especially the part between Omiya and Fukuoka. You’re mostly dashing in and out of tunnels with a flash of a view in between.

In Fukuoka, I checked into my hotel, dropped my bag, and headed for a local park and museum through back alleys, of course.

There, I found a burger place that looked mighty appetizing.

The museum had nice art on display, but it was mostly off-limits to photography.

The park outside was really nice, too, especially on this 22-degree day with the sun slowly setting.

When it was dark, I headed to a famous noodle place. You know, the one where they have little booths where you can sit by yourself and a little divider between you and the staff, so you can eat in private. You’ve probably seen it on YouTube.

Normally, there’s a 30-40-minute queue, but I could just walk right up and get a seat; nice! The noodles were very good, but it was mostly about the experience.

Afterward, I headed to a nearby street where there was supposed to be street food.

And there was, indeed, all these little stalls with food and people enjoying them. It was quite busy, and since I already had noodles, I didn’t want to sit down and take a spot, so I went a bit further where they had some more classic street-food trucks, and I got a few skewers instead.