Exploring Fukuoka

During our stay in Fukuoka we were blessed to stay at Sam's family friend's place on Nokonoshima Island. Nokonoshima Island is a 10 minute ferry ride from the main island and is about 12km in circumference. Their house is situated right next to the water, so as you fall asleep and wake up you hear the sound of water crashing against the rocks. It was very relaxing.

Nokonoshima Island. Taken on Sunday as we were leaving on the ferry.

Our Saturday began with a lovely sleep-in and then a walk around the island. The weather was still very cold and cloudy so you couldn't see too far across the water. It was a good walk nonetheless. On the way up the mountain, there are many yuzu (an asian citrus fruit) orchards. There were a few areas where you could see remnants of eaten yuzu. Not sure if someone had picked a few and eaten them or if it was a wild boar. On the way up it started raining ice!! Haha.. Sounds kind of strange when I put it that way but it was. It wasn't snow but tiny pieces of ice as if the rain had frozen on it's way down. On the way down around the other side of the mountain it is basically just forest before you hit the coast. We came across a mother goat bleating at us whilst it's kid just stared from afar. When we went to take a photo of the mother, it turned it's head then ran off to it's kid whilst leaving us with a memorable image of it's bottom shooting out pellets.

Encountered a few of these signs when walking around the island warning people of wild boars that may suddenly charge out.

The vine has either crept out of the window or inside it.

Can you guess what's happening in this picture?? It's an icicle that formed on the faucet.

Cool lotus flower root drain

Next we went off to visit Ohori Park. Before entering the park we looked around for a little while to find somewhere to get lunch and ended up settling for udon. The lady working there was very friendly. She kept talking to us (basically just Sam as she only spoke Japanese) and giving us stuff like pollution masks, magazines about Fukuoka and a fan.

My katsu-don set.

We read one review on tripadvisor about Ohori Park that made me laugh "Nothing special - It's a park like anywhere else". I would have to say it is definitely not just a park like anywhere else. It is a very big park with a large pond of water in the centre. There is a path that crosses the centre of the lake, which is where most of my pictures below are taken from. You will also find the remnants of Fukuoka castle, Ohori Park Japanese garden and Fukuoka art museum adjacent to the park.

Japanese seagulls. They have a little grey spot behind their eyes.

Around the park there were a few different stones like this with games for kids to play.

Distance markers along the jogging/running track.

Next we visited Fukuoka art museum. It was 200 yen (about AU$2) to see the permanent exhibition. There isn't a huge collection and no English description of the artwork so you can get through it fairly quickly. I really enjoyed the modern artwork. They had a special temporary exhibition that was quite pricey and soo big that half of the collection had to be shown at another venue.

Outside Fukuoka art museum.

Big pumpkin outside the musuem.

Afternoon tea time! We went to a cake shop called Jacques near where we had lunch.

Caramel eclair

Some caramel mousse cake with pieces of apple

Both the eclair and caramel mousse cake were delicious!! The caramel mousse cake did need some crunch to it though. After afternoon tea we met up with Sam's family friends and went to dinner at an amazing Moroccan place called Bistro Bar Crescent. The food was really good and I had the best cous cous ever. There was mainly one guy running the show. He was very friendly and helpful. I would definitely go back if I lived around there.