day 157, Fukuoka

The pouring rain ruined my intentions to have an early start, though it cleared-ish up around 11 and with no real plans meandered through Fukuoka. My hostel is on the outskirts of town so I spent the whole day just walking around, going up streets that no one really walks up unless they have a purpose to which was very interesting, to see normal Japanese living and the little things they do. Fukuoka is famed for it’s ramen, in particular it’s tonkotsu ramen, and in canal city (which is a shopping centre, the centrepiece being a manmade canal) they have Ramen Stadium, just a floor of Ramen vendors and it was excellent. I then walked to Ohori park which was very cool, very peaceful and read more of The Virgin Suicides, which I find very interesting in spurts then put it down after 10-15 mins, then a couple of hours later pick up engrossed before going back in my bag. The rough destination goal was the Fukuoka tower, on the way I stumbled upon a batting cage next to the Fukuoka hawks baseball dome, so went in and had a look. I’ve always wanted to go in a batting cage and a very kind man showed me the ropes. I started out at 100kmh (that sounds like I had a choice, I just pressed a couple of buttons and it popped up), the first batch whistled straight past, with me swinging wildly like a dickhead. I managed to refine my technique and hit about half the next batch, it was such a great feeling to Kriss Akabusi it I was smiling ear to ear under the helmet. The third batch I did even better and loved it, and left with a surprising amount of adreline pumping and quite the sweaty betty. Onwards toward the tower and came across “robosquare” which didn’t quite live up to it’s billing, a very bright small room with a few robots in, most you weren’t allowed to touch and as usual not a lot worked and I struggled to see the point to them. From there visited the tower which was very cool, though I didn’t go up it as I was distracted by a beach! For some reason I was caught unaware by this beach and actually very stupidly pointed and said out loud “beach!”. They had a cable that dragged people on wakeboards which was very cool to watch, though it was merging into darkness so they called it a day, leaving me just to sit and reflect overlooking beautiful views. I walked back around stopping off again at the batting cage, this time tackling 70kmh, 100kmh then 160kmh. I still cant get over how fast the last one is, didn’t even see it. I did have intentions of finding a pub with the football on though didn’t fancy it in the end, I was tired from my day and had spent my beer money in the batting cage. I got back to the hostel around half 10, chatted to a proper sound bloke from Brisbane called Saul who’s in his last year of being an (doctor) resident over here for a week holiday before hitting the hay.