Fukuoka is one largest southern cities of mainland Japan. It gives a feeling of being a pocket-sized Tokyo. It’s still relatively large at 1.6M people, but compared to Tokyo it’s much more manageable. Fukuoka is primarily known for its foodie scene, in particular the Yatai food stalls which are the mobile food carts where you sit shoulder to shoulder with strangers and share a hot meal.
Day 1
I left Hiroshima shortly after visiting the museum, so by the time I got to Fukuoka, I was physically and mentally drained. My plan was to stop by the hostel to drop my bag off before heading out to explore the town, but as I was storing my backpack in my capsule dorm room, a wave of exhaustion washed over me and I ended up napping for a couple hours.
Waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed, I ventured off into town. I stumbled across a Christmas celebration and had to snag a few pics with ol’ Saint Nick and his entourage of friends.
I kept walking the streets with no real direction in mind and eventually stumbled across this sort of long covered outdoor mall. These are very popular in the tourist areas of major cities; I think I found one in every city I went to.
Next was one of the most pivotal moments in my trip, and it was only day 4… I got hungry while walking around and decided to grab some sushi. One thing you need to know about Japan is that there are lines for almost every decent and above restaurant unless they take reservations. I found a couple sushi restaurants that looked solid, but most required reservations. That was until I found Hakata Kitaro Sushi, which had JUST opened and were able to get me the single last seat that wasn’t spoken for.
These guys were amazing. I unfortunately don’t have any videos of it, but the sushi chefs were the liveliest bunch of guys I’ve ever witnessed working at a restaurant. They were constantly shouting in unison for various benign things like someone walking in, or ordering, or a specific type of fish being ordered. To be honest, I didn’t understand what they were saying, but everyone was smiling and having a great time with the electric atmosphere.
To paint the picture, I’m a solo traveler who doesn’t speak the language, but everyone was having a blast around me, so I had to figure out how to communicate with them. Everyone knows to use the Google Translate app for English to Japanese translation and this is sufficient for the day to day communication, but I wanted more. The pivotal moment for the trip is when I learned that you could translate English into Japanese, but there was a phonetic pronunciation available as well. I went from being a complete Gaijin (foreigner) to a Gaijin who could speak Japanese. The world (Japan) was now my oyster. For the rest of the trip I took every and all opportunities to speak Japanese with people. I’d speak Japanese with terrible pronunciation, and they would respond in Japanese which would be translated to English via the microphone function in the app. Incredible.
When I started speaking with the chef in front of my his eyes widened in shock, and then he started shouting to the other chefs to come over and chat. These are the sort of interactions I live for when traveling, and I had tons more of these moments throughout the next few weeks.
Nearly everything on the menu was to be ordered as single units of nigiri. There were a couple stand out items like those pictured here, but largely I just ordered one-offs of nigiri. I did this en masse. I started off with just a few single pieces of fatty tuna, salmon, and squid. The quality and taste were insanely good, and after the first round, the flood gates were opened. I ordered just about everything on the menu once and some things multiple times. After all was said and done, my total bill was around $50 USD for the most incredible quality and variety of sushi that I’ve ever had.
On my way home, I wanted to see if I meet some other travelers, so I pulled the oldest trick in the book and stopped by an Irish pub. For anyone who doesn’t know, there are Irish pubs in every major city and you can almost always find travelers in Irish pubs. Cue: “Irish Pub Song” by The High Kings.
It was still early in the evening since I had eaten so early, so the Irish bar I went to (“Morris Black Sheep”) was still pretty empty. Not being a fan of drinking alone, I told myself that I’d order one Guinness and if nobody showed up before I had finished my drink, I’d head back to the hostel. Before the bartender even finished pouring my beer, an old timer expat showed up and said I could join him if I didn’t have anything better to do; luckily, my calendar was completely open.
I chatted with him about his life as an South African / UK dual citizen that married a Japanese women, had a daughter, moved to the US, divorce, then his move back to Japan with his daughter so she could attend college in Japan with his support. He also was fishing fanatic and was walking me through all of the local spots and stories of bringing people fishing. He was a bit quirky, a little racist, definitely sexist, and loved calling Californians Commiefornians, so I opted not to offer to go fishing with him, but he was fine to share a beer with. While we chatted, more expats started rolling through and he knew most of them which was great for me because he was happy to introduce us.
One of the people I met is the guy in the blue beanie named Jan, who I thought was 25 and later found out is 41. “Asian don’t raisin” as he put it. He currently lives in California near LA, but he used to live in Fukuoka for a couple of years awhile back and was visiting the guy in the middle, Shegeru, a local Fukuokian. After going through the typical intros, we decided to head next door to do some Karaoke.
The karaoke bars often have a pay by the 30 minute schedule and it includes unlimited free drinks which is a great deal. Highball (whiskey soda) is the drink of choice in Japan. It’s by far the most popular cocktail and potentially even more popular than beer. They like highballs because it helps to hydrate while keeping the alcohol content low so they can keep drinking. At least that’s what Jan said.
The locals were crushing all of their songs (all in Japanese), evidenced by the score that the karaoke unit gives you at the end of the song; theirs being >85%. Jan goaded me into singing a song in English, so I went with “Chattahoochee” by Alan Jackson because it’s a great song and I figured the locals might know it as a popular American song… They had no idea what it was, but it’s probably because I’m a terrible singer, which the equipment was kind enough to tell me with my score of 26%. Oh well, I had fun. Sorry to everyone else’s ears!
After about an hour or so of embarrassing ourselves, we called it a night. The walk home was only about 40 minutes and they were headed in the same direction so we all walked together. On the way home we grabbed these turmeric drinks which are heralded by the locals to prevent hangovers. Typically you drink them before a night out, but we figured it didn’t hurt.
After saying our goodbyes and splitting off from Jan and Shegeru, I ran into a group of people at 7-11 that were staying at my hostel. They were a smattering of travelers and exchange students who had just had a night on the town. Surprise surprise, the only American in the bunch was hammered while everyone else was relatively sober. Odd character, but they seemed to tolerate him. We all went back to the hostel to chat for a bit in the communal area before bed and kept switching out his alcoholic drinks for hydrating ones. While we sat and talked, I kept referencing Japanese words and phrases and looking to the guy to my left thinking he was Japanese. After the third time of him just nodding, he mentioned he was Korean. Whoops. We all had a laugh. He also wanted to make fun of the drunk American (in a funny way) who was racially Indian and I’ll never forget how funny it is to hear a Korean doing an Indian working at 7-11 impression. We were laughing hysterically. We continued on for another 45 minutes or so and then I turned in to go to bed.
Day 2
I hadn’t waited in any lines yet, so I found a ramen place that had some of the best reviews in Fukuoka and had a 25 minute long line queued up 10 minutes before opening. I figured no time like the present so I put some Netflix on (Prison Break) and parked myself in line. Honestly, probably my least favorite ramen that I’ve had on the trip, but it was still solid. Someone told me that the Japanese will queue up just because and will even eat there if it’s not great, just because the line was there. I didn’t believe it until I experienced it myself. Still, very friendly people and the food was good, just not what I had grown accustomed to.
Most of the day I just walked around the city taking in the sights. There are a couple historic areas in town and one of the largest Buddhas in all of Japan. No pictures allowed unfortunately but it sure was massive.
Fukuoka is mostly just a foodie city as far as I’m aware, so there weren’t many big attractions to go see. I think most people just go for the Yatai stalls. By nightfall I found the area where they mainly congregate which was a beautiful scenic river area lined with stalls and lights. It’s definitely a cool atmosphere. Each stall being it’s own portable restaurant where you’re sitting right next to other people. It’s engaging, the food is solid, and it’s dirt cheap.
The stalls were pretty packed, but as a solo person it’s pretty easy to find a single seat to squeeze into. I ended up sitting next to two people who were visiting from Washington state and graduated from WSU. Small world! I grabbed a couple Yakitori sticks which were solid. After this I walked the city a bit and called it a night.
Day 3
I only had 2 nights in Fukuoka and an early flight to catch to the island of Hokkaido. I bought a Japan Rail unlimited pass for about $600 for 21 days, which was pretty useful for when I was going from city to neighboring city, however, Hokkaido is all the way in the north and I was pretty close to as far south as one might go. Great news for me though, domestic flights in Japan are dirt cheap. I was flying with a checked bag and I paid around $80 to fly the entire length of the country. Also very convenient that the airport is in the middle of the city unlike with the popular Tokyo airport of Narita which is an hour away. It was raining on my walk to the airport but of course 7-11 carries everything you might need so I bought an umbrella and was on my way. A little rain wasn’t going to get me down!
My next stop on the trip was to the Niseko ski area to finally ride the famous Japanese powder, and it did not disappoint.
