Fukuoka Ramen Feast

This past weekend was a 3-day weekend for us "Japanese". And in honor of this occasion Ted and I decided to get out of Kyoto and go visit Fukuoka City, the capital of Fukuoka Prefecture located on the northern side of Kyushu, just across the way from South Korea's Busan. Also, this particular area is also know for...RAMEN. Tonkotsu ramen to be precise.

The ever wonderful Kyoto.

We left Friday evening right after we got out of work and arrived in Hakata Station (main station in Fukuoka) around 10pm. After we checked in our hostel (Khosan International Hostel, nice and clean! Very high rating in my books!) we decided that we had to hit the street in search of this amazing ramen we had heard so much about. Luckily we stumbled upon a ramen shop a few blocks away from our hostel and at 11:30pm we had our first, DELICIOUS, experience of Tonkotsu ramen.

Waiting for our ramen...we are a lil tired at this point. Does it show?!

This is 'tonkotsu ramen'. mmmmmmmm

For our first full day in Fukuoka we headed off to Canal City, a 6 building shopping structure. How strange that I would wind up in a shopping structure?! In all honesty, it wasn't all that impressive aside from the size of the complex. Nothing really worth looking at or buying, which is good news for my bank account!

Ted did find a lovely lady there however. This is a picture of Ted and family. (**This reminds me of Dad's Iniki family picture from back in the day. hahahahaha. )In regards to the shopping we were left wanting. But, when it comes to ramen, nothing beats Ichiran Ramen! When you type in ramen and Fukuoka into your internet search engine I am positive that the name 'Ichiran' will pop up. Out of all the ramen we had this past weekend, Ichiran tops the list. Before you are seated in your own semi-individual counter seat inside the shop, you are required to 'individualize' your ramen order. By this I mean you are asked to indicate how you would like your noodles prepared (soft, medium, hard), the fat content in your broth (none, little, medium, high), egg or no egg, the level of spiciness, and the strength in your green onion flavor (little, medium, strong). I opted for medium, little fat, egg, spicy, and medium green onion tonkotsu ramen, and, can i just say how OISHII (delicious) it was?! Well, I will...It was DELICIOUS!

The mall robot directory service. Just ask where you would like to go! Oh Japan, so many wonderful things.
We ate well, what can I say?

Another highlight of our day, aside from all great eating, was an impromptu hip hop show in the middle of the mall! I actually shouldn't call it impromptu, because that would be so "un-Japan", but it was nothing really official. There were no announcements of who the performers were or what the exact purpose of the show was, other than good dancing.
Please make sure to watch the video I recorded below of my favorite group
(It also helped that the guys in it were pretty cute too!).

B-boys breakin it down.

PLEASE WATCH!

Our second day we got off to a late start, but we made a great discover in the IMS building in Tenjin (the downtown area of the city). Inside this other, um, ahem, shopping structure (Yea, i know I did a lot of really good sight seeing huh?!) we found some good eats and I also foind my future car! The Nissan Fair Lady. Its only a little over $200,000. Fits right into my budget, no problem (I wish!).

It may seem as though we just hung out in malls, but we actually did get to see some of the other finer points of the city. I forgot to mention this earlier but on our first day we saw the Asian Art Museum, which held some interesting pieces. I wish I could have had more explanation on a few of the artists, but I will be fluent in Japanese soon enough and will have no problem reading things (Again, I wish!).

The second day we made our way to the beautiful Ohori park which also lead us to the Fukuoka Art Museum. Unfortunately, we arrived a little late so we barely got to see any of the art work. From what I saw however I would have liked to seen more. I hope that there will be a time when I will be able to go back and visit.

This creeped me out A LOT! I wish this Alfred Hitchcock-esque tree had not been set right in the middle of Ohori Pond because aside from this tree of nasty, scavenger birds
the park was beautiful.

WARNING. Display of ugly, red dresses. Do not look directly at them.

The place we found ugly, red dresses. FYI.

Another bowl of ramen! We found this place in a section of the Canal City Mall called, "Ramen Stadium". I think our ramen count stood at 4 bowls in 3 days. Definitely have had my fill for a while...

No explanation other than, I had to take a photo of this club...

This is our friend Chris. He found a kangaroo suit on sale during the day. This is Chris after a night out dancing (the suit was not worn during actual time in club). Isn't he a cute kangaroo?

These are faces of disappointment in the HORRENDOUS D.J. who took music requests but decided that bad music was more fun to listen to.

Lucky for us, one of our friends, Chris, who works in Shiga also happened to be visiting Fukuoka the same time as us. He and his 3 friends made our trip so much more fun!Oh! Fun side note, I met the Sendai basketball team! It was so odd to see all these tall basketball players inside the club. I mean, with their height, they totally blend in ya know? All in all it was a great 3-day weekend with great food and dancing. So great in fact that our entire trip back to Kyoto was met with zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.