As many long-term residents of Japan do, I have a goal to visit all 47 prefectures of Japan. Just last week, together with my parents, who flew over from Chicago for a long weekend, I checked off No. 25: Fukuoka Prefecture.
I'd never been to Fukuoka, which is on Japan's southerly island of Kyushu, before, but everyone I know who had visited had told me it was a great trip. It's capital, also called Fukuoka, has the distinction of being both Japan's youngest city and also the city with the fastest growing population, making it one of the only metropolitan areas outside of Tokyo with an increasing number of residents. A very dynamic place to visit; a vibrant city with an old, old history.
WARNING: LOOOONG POST AHEAD.
Friday morning my parents and I hop over on a flight from Haneda Airport to Fukuoka Airport, which is a fantastic 10 minutes away form the city center. Ten. Minutes. What I would do to have one of Tokyo's airports be that close! The weather was sunny and warm (finally, this week, the heat wave in Tokyo has broken but Kyushu is generally even warmer) and after dropping our bags off at the hotel, we were off to explore!
One of our first stops was Ohori Park, a large public park dominated by a giant pond which used to be part of Fukuoka Castle's defenses. You can walk around the pond or you can cut straight across it via bridges connected three small islands -- Yanagi (Willow) Island, Matsu (Pine) Island, and Shobu (Calamus/ Sweet Flag) Island.
Arguably the most iconic feature of Ohori Park is the Ukimido Pavilion, a red, hexagonal structure that juts out into the water and provides photo fodder galore (or, if you're an incompetent boater, an unfortunate obstacle).
Afterwards, to get out of the scorching sun, we popped into the next-door Fukuoka Art Museum, which recently completed a multiyear renovation. No photos from the exhibitions, unfortunately, but we did have a lot of fun posing next to one of Yayoi Kusama's iconic spotted pumpkins.
As if that weren't enough for Day 1, we also checked out two of Fukuoka's more famous temples, Tochoji and Shofukuji.
Tochoji is the oldest Shingon Buddhist temple in Japan. The grounds have a lovely five-story pagoda, as well as a structure I couldn't identify but had fun rotatable, clacky prayer beads. The temple is most famous for its 10.8-meter-tall wooden statue of seated Buddha (no photos allowed), carved from one massive block of Japanese hinoki cypress. Beneath the Buddha's pedestal is a "hell-paradise tour": first you walk past several grim scenes of Buddhist hell, then you wind your way through a pitch-black corridor, so dark you have to keep one hand on the wall and one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you, and, after emerging from the darkness, past several scenes of Buddhist heaven, with cherubic babies being born from lotus blossoms and all that jazz.
The nearby Shofukuji, Japan's oldest ZEN Buddhist temple, was even more picturesque, its huge compound was practically deserted, so we got to wander around at will.
For dinner, I had gotten us reservations at La Maison de la Nature Goh, which is No. 48 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2019, and deserves that accolade 100% and more. Suffice to say, if you CAN go, DO, least of all because it will close in 2020 when head chef Takeshi Fukuyama begins a new collaborative restaurant, Gohgan, with Indian chef Gaggan Anand.
Day 2 took us out of Fukuoka and to Dazaifu, the former administrative capital of Fukuoka, in the southeast.
Our first stop was Dazaifu Tenman Shrine, which is built over the grave of Sugawara no Michizune and dedicated to his deified form.
We also stopped at a shop selling umegae mochi, a grilled, chewy red bean-filled rice cake with a plum blossom stamped in the top: sticky, sweet, and hot hot hot.
...we stopped at the Kyushu National Museum, a gorgeous glass building that houses an expansive, comprehensive collection of artifacts detailing Japan's history from the Jomon Period (14,000-300 BC), emphasizing the country's interactions with its Pan-Asian neighbors and how those interactions impacted art, religion etcetc.
Finally, on Day 3, our last major stop was Nanzoin Temple, home to (potentially?) the world's largest bronze statue: a reclining Buddha. A whopping 41 meters long, 11 meters high, and weighing 300 tons, this statue was only completed in 1995. While it doesn't have the same history of, say, the giant Buddhas in Nara or Kamakura or even the wooden one in Fukuoka proper, it's quite the view.
In terms of pose, it's actually rather unique for Japan, where most statues of the Buddha show him seated (e.g. meditating) rather than reclining (e.g. about to enter Nirvana), which is more common in Southeast Asia.
The temple complex, which was too extensive for us to explore fully, had a plethora of additional statues, including a fairly large (albeit small in comparison) rendition of Fudo Myo'o, one of the Five Kings of Wisdom.
After wandering around, we made a quick pit stop at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum for one last bit of culture and then it was basically just relax for the remainder of the day. We did grab dinner at one of Fukuoka's famous yatai food stalls, this one run by an old couple specializing in tempura.
I'd never been to Fukuoka, which is on Japan's southerly island of Kyushu, before, but everyone I know who had visited had told me it was a great trip. It's capital, also called Fukuoka, has the distinction of being both Japan's youngest city and also the city with the fastest growing population, making it one of the only metropolitan areas outside of Tokyo with an increasing number of residents. A very dynamic place to visit; a vibrant city with an old, old history.
WARNING: LOOOONG POST AHEAD.
Friday morning my parents and I hop over on a flight from Haneda Airport to Fukuoka Airport, which is a fantastic 10 minutes away form the city center. Ten. Minutes. What I would do to have one of Tokyo's airports be that close! The weather was sunny and warm (finally, this week, the heat wave in Tokyo has broken but Kyushu is generally even warmer) and after dropping our bags off at the hotel, we were off to explore!
One of our first stops was Ohori Park, a large public park dominated by a giant pond which used to be part of Fukuoka Castle's defenses. You can walk around the pond or you can cut straight across it via bridges connected three small islands -- Yanagi (Willow) Island, Matsu (Pine) Island, and Shobu (Calamus/ Sweet Flag) Island.
Arguably the most iconic feature of Ohori Park is the Ukimido Pavilion, a red, hexagonal structure that juts out into the water and provides photo fodder galore (or, if you're an incompetent boater, an unfortunate obstacle).
After strolling across the pond, we popped into the Ohori Park Japanese Garden, which was incredibly lush, so green it practically hurt your eyes. Also, unlike, well, all of the Japanese gardens in Tokyo, you can't actually see any tall buildings above the treeline, which gave this garden a wonderfully secluded and timeless vibe.
As if that weren't enough for Day 1, we also checked out two of Fukuoka's more famous temples, Tochoji and Shofukuji.
Tochoji is the oldest Shingon Buddhist temple in Japan. The grounds have a lovely five-story pagoda, as well as a structure I couldn't identify but had fun rotatable, clacky prayer beads. The temple is most famous for its 10.8-meter-tall wooden statue of seated Buddha (no photos allowed), carved from one massive block of Japanese hinoki cypress. Beneath the Buddha's pedestal is a "hell-paradise tour": first you walk past several grim scenes of Buddhist hell, then you wind your way through a pitch-black corridor, so dark you have to keep one hand on the wall and one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you, and, after emerging from the darkness, past several scenes of Buddhist heaven, with cherubic babies being born from lotus blossoms and all that jazz.
The nearby Shofukuji, Japan's oldest ZEN Buddhist temple, was even more picturesque, its huge compound was practically deserted, so we got to wander around at will.
For dinner, I had gotten us reservations at La Maison de la Nature Goh, which is No. 48 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2019, and deserves that accolade 100% and more. Suffice to say, if you CAN go, DO, least of all because it will close in 2020 when head chef Takeshi Fukuyama begins a new collaborative restaurant, Gohgan, with Indian chef Gaggan Anand.
Day 2 took us out of Fukuoka and to Dazaifu, the former administrative capital of Fukuoka, in the southeast.
Our first stop was Dazaifu Tenman Shrine, which is built over the grave of Sugawara no Michizune and dedicated to his deified form.
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| According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, "When Michizane died, his body was carried by an ox that stopped near a Buddhist monastery. Unable to move the body along, Michizane was buried there by his follower, Umasake no Yasuyuki, and the shrine was built there. Today, a statue of an ox stands nearby to commemorate the event." |
We also stopped at a shop selling umegae mochi, a grilled, chewy red bean-filled rice cake with a plum blossom stamped in the top: sticky, sweet, and hot hot hot.
After the shrine, we stopped at Komyozenji temple, which is famous for its rock garden, the only one in Kyushu.
After a quick lunch and cup of coffee from Coffee Rankan...
...we stopped at the Kyushu National Museum, a gorgeous glass building that houses an expansive, comprehensive collection of artifacts detailing Japan's history from the Jomon Period (14,000-300 BC), emphasizing the country's interactions with its Pan-Asian neighbors and how those interactions impacted art, religion etcetc.
Finally, on Day 3, our last major stop was Nanzoin Temple, home to (potentially?) the world's largest bronze statue: a reclining Buddha. A whopping 41 meters long, 11 meters high, and weighing 300 tons, this statue was only completed in 1995. While it doesn't have the same history of, say, the giant Buddhas in Nara or Kamakura or even the wooden one in Fukuoka proper, it's quite the view.
In terms of pose, it's actually rather unique for Japan, where most statues of the Buddha show him seated (e.g. meditating) rather than reclining (e.g. about to enter Nirvana), which is more common in Southeast Asia.
The temple complex, which was too extensive for us to explore fully, had a plethora of additional statues, including a fairly large (albeit small in comparison) rendition of Fudo Myo'o, one of the Five Kings of Wisdom.
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| Next to Fudo Myo'o are 500 stone arhat statues, each with exaggerated expressions. |
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| Trail to a small Inari Shrine. |
I had my rice bowl holding technique corrected several times, with the Tempura Grandpa, as I'm dubbing him for convenience, showing me the "proper" way to hold the bowl by the rim and base between my thumb and index finger. Always good to have someone keep you humble!
Things I didn't have time or inclination to cover in this post: The multiday Kyushu Gospel Festival we kept seeing (surprisingly good!) performances of, coffee, ramen, a whisky bar with over 1,500 unique bottles, seafood etcetc. Suffice to say, there's plenty here to satisfy even the most discerning traveler.
This is nice article. Keep it up.
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