Plum (ume) tree viewing

Today, one of Sam's colleagues took us plum tree viewing with his two sons. Not too sure where we went, but it was past Himeji somewhere.. =P The plum trees produce a different type of plum than western plum. It is more sour plum and usually eaten in it's pickled state commonly in onigiri. The Japanese plum trees are beautiful trees with a delightful sweet fragrance. We saw four different colours - white, pink, red (although it was just really dark pink) and blue/green. I say blue/green as they call what I consider green to be blue. The traffic lights are called red, yellow and blue (green) =P. The blue/green one was slightly green a bit like greenish hydrangeas. We saw a quite a few people who would venture off the path into the trees to find a nice spot to sit and have lunch under the trees.
 

Plum blossom tea - salty like the seaweed tea in Kyoto

Close up white plum tree

Close up 'red' plum tree

Pink and red

Close up pink plum tree

This one was a pinky white

Green plum tree

Sad weeping plum tree

Sam's colleague took us out for some eel lunch. It was really good! They also gave us 3 whole charcoal grilled 'sama' fish. It was tasty fish, but it was a little difficult to eat due to all the little bones as we hadn't eaten one before. We watched a variety show the other week, where they showed and ranked housewives skills and manners in eating this fish. I was trying to remember how they showed the proper way to eat it whilst slowly destroying my fish. =(

Fukuoka day 3

Aiyo!! This was sitting as a draft for soo long.. Oops.. This is the third day/ installment of our time in Fukuoka.

Tim (Sam's family friend) and his son Yogi took us around Fukuoka on Sunday before taking us to the airport. Our first stop was Kushida shrine. It was a real blessing having Tim with us as he was able to explain what certain things in the shrine were/for. Hakata shrine hosts Hakata Gion Yamakasa a festival celebrated in early July. It includes a float race, where men carry riduculously heavy wooden floats and race.

Sam and Yogi in one of the entrances/mouths to the shrine

Example of a float

Back view of the float

A wedding started whilst we were there

Example of a traditional Hakata wall

We went to Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. We saw two exhibitions - Voyage and awakening: Chinese contemporary art 1979-2009, and Freedom in Blossom! :Gangaw Village and Experimental Art in 1980s Burma. The Second exhibition I found extremely interesting as the artwork shows some of the hardships that the artists had experienced/ witnessed.

Canal city has one floor dedicated to ramen and is named ...  RAMEN STADIUM. There are many ramen shops on this floor and you purchase your meal tickets for the particular shop you want to eat at before getting in the LONG queues. We got there fairly early but it was already packed so we decided to go for good ol' Ichiran downstairs. This particular branch of Ichiran, located in Canal city gives you the option of having an original blend of vinegar in your ramen. Sam and I tried the ramen with vinegar this time. It enhanced the flavour of the broth, however I wish you could specify how much vinegar you could get as it was a little too vinegary for me.

Ramen Stadium entrance