Getting used to Fukuoka part 1

I'm starting to get really glad that I didn't fo straight to Tokyo!

This way?

The first couple of days were so intense that I never really had time to stop and think about what was going on. And so, when school was out yesterday and everyone went their separate ways, I was left with an overwhelming feeling of "well, what the Hell do I do now?". Fukuoka is quite cold this time of year, and I left most of my winter clothes at home, so I felt frozen, confused, and for the first time since I got here, very much alone.

That way?

For a few hours I wandered aimlessly around town. I got lost, found myself, got lost again. Forgot to eat, and was too intimidated by ordering alone in Japanese to try to get dinner anywhere. Ended up buying an incredibly disgusting piece of mayonaise-infused Not-Bread at a convenience store somewhere downtown, and the feeling of wrongness it left in my stomach did not at all help my mood.

Maybe here?

I felt like I had to do something cool and interesting, since I'm in such a special place, but everything I thought of involved getting more cold and more tired. So instead of deciding I just kept wandering. Sometimes changing directions in the middle of the street, sometimes walking around a block back to where I started. I was getting nowhere, and the day was wasting.

Eventually I decided to just go home. Being in less than an ideal mental state, it was only once I was on the highway to god knows where that I realized I had gotten on the wrong bus. Well that, at last, woke me up.

Stupid!

Eventually, the bus did stop, and I could pay the larger-than-for-me-usual fare for the trip. Damn, but I'm glad I had the extra coin! I had no particular idea of where I was, and did not want to get on another bus. I was already quite pissed at myself and didn't want to spend any more money on my stupidity. It was cold, windy and raining, and I decided that sufficient self-punishment would be to walk home in my light spring jacket and fashionable-but-none-too-practical shoes.

Fukuoka tower

The walk took about one hour. I got home, had a shower, and did some serious thinking.


TO BE CONTINUED!