I left Kumamoto at about 9 AM, after another "Breakfast of Champions" (2 chocolate donuts and an ice tea). When I was building robots in high school, we used to have early Saturday morning meetings, sometimes Sundays too. Every Saturday I used to bring donuts, eating mine before we arrived - two chocolate donuts and a quart of milk. Ah, the memories. However, on this day, I was not at Liberty Donuts, I was at a Mr. Donut in Kumamotoeki, and as you can see, things are a bit different.
After arriving in Fukuoka, I found that my hotel was not as close to the train station as I first thought. In fact, it was far enough away that I couldn't see it at all. Then, it started to rain. No, not just rain, POUR. Heaven itself opened its floodgates and released a quantity of water that has yet to be equalled. Or so it seemed. After some missteps and a good drenching, I found my hotel and dropped off my bags. I realized that I had nothing much to do, so I made my own day. I decided to wander back towards the train station and find the actual way to get there. I made it as far as the local coffee shop. I also went inside a few art galleries, in which I was dutifully ignored by the staff (since when do people in t-shirts not buy $4000 vases?).
Making my way back towards the hotel, I decided to strike off towards a nearby shrine. It turns out that the shrine, known as the Kushida Shrine, is the largest in Fukuoka, a rather large city, and that it has many gigantic Shinto festivals, including one that is a speciality of Hakata. Imagine the Shinto festival I attended in Kumamoto, with 20-40 foot tall portable shrines that have no business being portable, with people riding them. Then imagine the people bearing the shrines RUNNING THROUGH THE STREETS. Then you have a small idea of the Hakata Gion Yamakasa. Let me give you some hard numbers: 7 floats, each weighing in at about a ton, carried by 26 guys. These guys run a 5 kilometer course through the streets of Fukuoka, dressed in traditional clothes. Quite a sight.
I worked my way through the shrine, snapping some pictures of some of the more interesting things, including the main shrine where three seperate deities are enshrined (Amaterasu, Ohatanushi, Susano). I then went to the museum that is on the grounds. I could not read the kanji that said "No Pictures", so I had a few snapshots in before I was dissuaded from taking any more. There were a few things in the museum that I missed taking photos of, including several ancient katana blades and a matched set of chisel tipped straight blades in an ancient style - Heian era or earlier.
After visiting the museum, I had my artistic interest piqued and decided to go to the nearby Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. There, I discovered that they had not only a permanent exhibit, but also a short term exhibit of Silk Road style clothing, both ancient and modern. It was extremely interesting, but again, I couldn't take pictures.
The permanent exhibit was also interesting, with a few pieces of tech art as well as a selection of art covered the gamut from European influenced to something completely Asian. You can see some of the better pictures below (the lighting was horrible and no flash was allowed).
I then went upstairs and saw the children's exhibit. Some of these pictures were truly amazing, especially given the age of the the children involved. It bodes well for future Japanese artists if these kids are taught well.
After the museum, I began to wander the attached mall. It was truly a fashion mecca, with more designer names in one place than I have EVER seen. Kind of scary, seeing that nothing in the entire mall was under $1000. I took some pictures in a decorating store, where nothing was under $30. On the bottom floor, there was an incredibly interesting sight - a business called RoboSquare. I had to go in and see what it was all about. Seemingly it is a place for people to play and learn about robots. They seem to make their money by running robot building classes, as well as selling both full robots and kits. They also run birthday parties and special events. They had many different robots in there, including several new consumer-style robots, much to my delight.
After visiting Robosquare, I travelled back towards the hotel, stopping at a curry place on the way. After arriving, I changed out of my travelling clothes, took a shower, snapped some photos, then got dressed and went to the Canal City Hakata, the most confusing mall ever. Four to seven floors of shopping and attractions, the floors sometimes conenct and sometimes don't amongst the 4-5 buildings the mall is stretched across. While hard to navigate, it also was fun since there was always something new to see around every corner. I caught King Arthur, in English with Japanese subtitles, and headed back to the hotel for bed. Early day tomorrow heading to Iga-Ueno in Mie!
The movie was pretty good - I especially enjoyed the soft conversion from the Roman Empire to the Medieval Ages. The strangest thing though - except for myself, the other twenty or so people in the movie theatre were Japanese, even though there is a Japanese language version of the film. I guess they just like subs! (subtitles)