Well, it's a start

My first day in Fukuoka is drawing to a close, and I must admit; I slept through most of it. Bummer.

A picture of me this morning

So I woke up at about 10am feeling fine, except for the fact that every limb I own had fallen off as a result of my first night on a futon. Strangely, my back felt fine*.

*That's because I usually treat my back like shit.

From the goaway party. It's just
not a party unless I do something
stupid.

Anyways, my host mother pruposed we go visit a temple, which I found to be an awome idea because A) Japanese temples are generally awsome and pretty and B) I was waaaay too out of it to come up with anything to do today by myself. So we hopped in her car and drove into the "cold" "winter" day.

Driving on the left. I find this faintly disturbing, and I don't even have a liscence!

The temple was on a hill overlooking the city, so naturally the view was more or less spectacular. I am looking derpy in front of Fukuoka:

It's no Tokyo, but it's still big. This I've come to realize about Japan:
Big cities, small everything else.

This place was really doing it's best to be as Japanese as possible. Including but not limited to:

Really long flights of stairs:

Well, just seing those steps again makes me ache.

You're going to have a lot of fun carrying buckets of water up and down that fucker.

A hand-cleany water-house thing:

I don't have a quote ready for this. Suggestions?

YUM!

A ballin' café where I had warm, crispy-outside-soft-inside mochi (soft rice cake thing) deliciousness and sweet red bean soup for breakfast. Damn, but it was some good food!



It was a legless-chair tiny-table tatami floor kind of place:

That cherry blossom tree, at a grand whooping 120 year of age, is apparently the second oldest in Japan.

And of course, the temple itself:

A fairly simple one compared to the huge ones I saw last time I was in Japan
(not helped by the fact that I forgot to get a picture from the actual front of the thing...),
but it was made infinitelly cooler by the drumming and chanting!

Also, somebody had given this giant horse a bag of carrots:

Neigh, motherfucker.

After this, we went home and I promptly had a short five-hour nap.

Norue Samon. I'm betting it's trip here was more
comfortable than mine. Excepting it being dead at the time.

In the evening-time, I happened to notice that the adapter I bought before I left, the one proudly proclaming to be a "World Adapter: Travel Anywhere" apparently had a giant huge asterisk (on it's website, not the packaging) that said "Anywhere; Except Japan! Because we hate you!" (I'm paraphrasing). So I, having already spent all my battery power larking about the Hong Kong airport, was to be without a computer. I happened to mention this to my aforementioned host mother, and being awsome she proclaimed that there was an Electric Shoppu close by that would still be open for half an hour and would I like her to take me there? I was like, "Yes, please!".

After relacing my shitty adapter, we went to a supermarket where I bonded with some Norwegian salmon, and bought the cutest notebooks you'll ever see.

I know that these are for primary school kids.
Does it look for three seconds like I care?

Do you like chopsticks? These are half off!

It's best never to confuse "Hashi" with "Hashish". One means "Chopstick", the other does not.

Then, we had some sushi for supper even though we already ate dinner, because this is Japan, goddamnit!

Also, sushi is usually half-off in the evening. Much sushi, so cheap, yum!

Going now to bed at last, here is a picture of a glorious invention. I bring to you: The Futon Warmer!

Thank you, Futon Warmer, for Warming my Futon. Oyasuminasai, motherfuckers.