A short stopover in Fukuoka, Japan
It has been 4 years since we were in Japan in 2019. Post Covid we visited the trio of Switzerland, Austria and Germany because Japan wasn’t open to foreigners yet. They finally opened their doors again in 2023 and so we packed our bags and got ready to go.
We originally booked the flight for Seoul and had planned our entire trip in Korea from north to south to Busan. However while planning we learnt that we could actually take a ferry from Busan to the port city of Fukuoka. Since it was unlikely that I would ever travel to Kyushu from Tokyo, it made sense to come here from Korea. So we ended up splitting our 2 weeks trip between Japan and Korea.
Our first day was spent mainly transitting from Incheon Airport to Fukuoka Airport. We took a red eye flight from Singapore and landed early in Seoul then spent the next 3 odd hours chilling at the airport. We were pleasantly surprised to find a Riot Games Experience Centre at the airport. I mean why?! So we spent about an hour learning to play League of Legends and Valorant just to pass time.
Then it was off to Fukuoka which was just an hour’s flight away. Our first thought upon touching down is ‘We are finally home!’ However it appears this was the same as thousands of other travellers who arrived at the same time. We ended up spending about an hour to clear immigration. Then we had to take the internal shuttle bus from international terminal to domestic terminal in order to take the subway to town. Hmm not a very good first experience of this part of Japan.
There are basically three main spots in Fukuoka to check out – Hakata, Nakasu and Tenjin. If I could sum it up Hakata is like the administrative center, Nakasu is the entertainment district and Tenjin is the shopping district. We spent most of our time in the city at Tenjin where most of the anime shops are at – Mandarake, Animate, Lashinbang etc. to hunt for affordable figurines. Contrary to my expectations we actually managed to find many anime figurines at really good prices at Mandarake and had to stop only because we didn’t have enough space in our luggage.
Nakasu is where you can check out the yatai stalls that Fukuoka is famous for. I was really looking forward to eating at these stalls but they felt intimidating to be honest for non locals to try out. This is also the red light district that comes alive at night. There are escort clubs catered for both both men and women.
My personal favourite though is the Canal City located smacked along the Naka River. It housed many shops selling anime merchandise from official distributors such as Jump Shop, Ultraman, Gundam Base and Bandai Cross shop. I loved the latter and could easily spend a whole day just checking out the hundreds of gachapon machines. Tokyo Revengers seems all the craze now and they had an exhibition area to commemorate the launch of the live action movie.
Fukuoka is served by a network of subway but I found that the three main spots can be easily reached on foot estimating about 2-3km between each other. As our accommodation was located right smack in between Nakasu and Hakata, I found it much more convenient to just walk.
Rather than leave our food options to chance I decided to plan in some food stops in my itinerary this time round. As Kyushu is known for their ramen, we had ramen on our first night here at Ichiran, the famous ramen brand chain which you can also buy from Don Q. The dining experience was pretty unique as you could eat in the comfort and sanctity of your personal stalls and use the various wooden tablets to give instructions without speaking a word. Of course this wasn’t the experience I had as I had to communicate that I was ordering for sharing – something they had not quite expected. The ramen noodles were really delicious but the highlight for me was the char siu that just melted in my mouth. I have never tasted pork this good before!
One of the other things you can experience in Asia is the non-stop dining through the night. After tucking the younger children to sleep at our airbnb apartment, we headed out to an izakaya for some supper. Grilled squid with crab miso mayo and a chilled shochu was just what we needed to remind us why we love Japan so much!
