After a night in Cairns we were quite refreshed before boarding the JetStar flight to Narita. Other passengers had had a 6am start (4am at the airport) from Sydney and were looking very weary by the time we reached Narita. The flight took about 8 hours and we were well entertained with an iPad and movies. I had opted for business class (my history of blood clots was a good excuse! ) but Joe chose cattle class.
I had expected to be cold in Narita and I dressed accordingly but both the aircraft and the airport were overheated so we were sweating. Outside though was cooler.
We stayed in the Narita Gateway hotel, because of a fairly early start next morning. The room was small, the toilet interesting, and the breakfast a welcome surprise. There were plenty of vegetarian options, with interesting vegetables, tofu, and miso soup. Miso soup is often (even usually) made with bonito flake broth as a base, although it can be made with a nori (seaweed) broth. We have decided not to be too picky with our vegan preferences, or we will miss out on too much.
And outside the window of the restaurant was a Japanese water garden with Koi! In spite of our aquarium hobby I had forgotten about expecting Koi in Japan so that was a nice surprise.
We even saw some cherry blossoms on the way back to the airport, but it was an industrial area so I won't bore you with the photos. There are more cherry blossoms to come, so watch this space.
So far everyone has been helpful, and there are quite a few signs in English. Starting our Japan adventure has not been threatening or difficult at all.
Aboard the flight to Fukuoka (Kyushu, the southern most of the main islands), we had a good view of Mt Fuji!
There is a fair bit of pollution all along the west coast (as you can see in the Mt Fuji photo. Japan is blaming China for this pollution.
In Fukuoka we stayed at Forza Hotel in Hakata. It is very near the Hakata Station, but we had trouble finding it. I asked in a Resturaunt for directions. A young man (waiter) left his workplace and walked with us about 2 blocks to our hotel! We were very impressed.
We were very eager to get outside and start exploring!
Check this streetscape outside our hotel!
We went to Tenjin station, where there is an underground city! Streets of shops, cafés, boutiques, supermarkets, coffe shops! All underground!
This is a kimono worth between $4000 and $5000 AUD!
The resturaunts have plastic models of their food outside -looking so realistic! But still it's hard to work out what us in them!
We tried these little cups of a custard-like thing made from soy milk powder. It was quite strange but nice.
The supermarket was astounding!
This was nearly all tofu products! (Great for vegans) and the vege section had strange vegies -roots, bulbs, beans, all great quality but expensive.
And there were these..
Anyway we reckon it bodes well for our travels, if this renowned non-vegetarian city has so much to delight us!
Around dusk we set off in search of an evening meal. We headed on foot towards "Canal City". On the way we encountered a "cherry blossom" display -a light show! It was quite pretty but a bit kitch surely, seeing that the real cherry blossoms have just finished here!
But I don't know what these little fellows were about! It seems to be a Japanese penchant for comic characters.
We found the canal after getting lost a couple of times. We tried a "ramen stadium" only to find that ALL of the ramen noodles had pork broth as a base. After the long walk we were getting a bit despondent.
We were looking at an information board when this fountain went off with a bang! It was like a fireworks display and we nearly jumped out of our skins! It reminded us of Las Vegas! Those water squirts are going three stories high!
Finally we came to a Resturaunt with a buffet - we could look at the food first and choose our own dishes. And it was delicious!
Well that's the end of day one. And it feels like a week since we left home so much has happened!
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