12th April 2009 - Hakata, Canal City and Fukuoka

We were counting on today to be much more laid back compared to what we encountered in Japan. Fail. I should have known what I was in for when I suddenly realised I was playing pictionary with the hotel receptionist when I asked her how best to get to Canal City from our hotel (she couldn't speak english).





Hopefully my directions will help any fellow travellers with locating this venue from Hakata station.


So firstly you need to make your way to the Northern End of the Hakata JR terminal (it is VERY handy to have a compass with you at all times as you will most certainly lose your bearings at some point as most of the buildings look the same after a while). When you walk into the bus terminal, you'd need to go to gate number 4, which is about 20-30m from the entrance of this Bus Depot.





You don't need to purchase a ticket from any of the machines. When you enter the bus through the rear door, you just need to pluck out one of these tickets from the machine.




When you arrive to the second bus stop, that's when you get off the bus (directly in front of the 7/11 convenience store)... Walk to the front of the bus and drop a 100Y coin into the little container next to the bus driver.. exchange bows/smiles and hop off the bus. You then walk down the road a few meters (in the same direction as the bus) until you see the Canal and the buildings either side of it. In no time you'll spot Canal City (it'll be pretty hard not to)... If you're getting lost... just follow your nose and walk towards the stinky scent of an open sewer (that would be the Canal)

Once you're near the Canal, it's a cool sight but not so for the nose. I'd imagine this place would reek during summer time. To my surprise, there were living creatures in the Canal (small fishes) so I guess the water down there isn't too bad (I couldn't count how many eyes these fishes had though)

In no time, you reach one of the 3 towers that make up Canal City... This place is HUGE!

Here's the central Tower of the 3 interconnecting towers.

When we finally made our way through to the basement of this complex, the main strip was built on either side of the man made canal that flowed through the centre of Canal City.

There were numerous banners/flags hung throughout the building which was promoting the Spring Festival... One of the main attractions was some intricate flower sculptures. Here's the Panda (next to it was a billboard for World Wide Fund for Nature)

Here's a baboon (for a moment there I couldnt tell the arse from the face)

An Elephant

The Lion King stage performance was on show at the Canal City and there were a few promotional floral sculture pieces of some key characters in the show on display - Hakuna Matata baby!

And finally a polar bear (it was also the main performance stage for a number of acts throughout the day - I'll cover that later)

Inside one of the restaurants was a cool clear grand piano in the bar area

Breakfast time and our Pastry Tour of Japan continues (thanks Kev :) ) - This time we stopped by a promising bakery which also sold cookware and miscellaneous tidbits including t-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets. They should have been alarm bells but I wasn't paying attention.

This is one of the 3 items we purchased from this bakery/cafe. It was a ham/spinach/mayonnaise combo in a dense croissant-like pastry. The mayo actually tasted like lard and the central layers of pastry underneath the crispy skin was dense and too chewy. I'd rate this a 4/10.

Then came the sausage/cheese/onion roll below. Choice number 2 also failed. The sausage was cold (which is totally gross) and the bread was also cold and chewy. 3/10 for this sausage bun of evil (I hope I don't get sick as a result of eating it).

Choice number 3 was Ee Laine's... Bacon/Onion/Cheese Loaf... It was done VERY well and may well have been the saviour of this bakery. Ee Laine gives it a 6.5/10 (yep.. she's a harsh critic too!)

After washing the dough down with some bottled water, we shopped around for another hour or so until we heard some music and laughter/cheering... There was a guy at the bottom level doing tricks on a bicycle against a backdrop of retro western music (which included Ricky Martin). This guy managed to cycle round and round in circles (cm from the edge of the water) without the use of his hands (he was standing on the handlebars at the time) - Later, he did it again whilst juggling 3 juggling pins. I wonder how many bones/testicles he's broken over the years to perfect this performance.

Continuing on with our shopping, we came across an optical/spectacle store called Zoff. They were selling complete single vision spectacles for 5200Y (about $70AUD). Ee Laine FINALLY found a pair of plastic frames which fit her asian face.

The asian face syndrome (about 99.9% of the asian population is affected by this) is symptomatic of not having a european nosebridge. The end result is that a majority of frames on the market today (which are designed by the europeans) do not fit properly on asian faces. The frames often touch the cheeks of the asian wearer... That is until we discovered this bit of GENIUS... BEHOLD... the latest in Japanese eyewear fashion (well I'm assuming it's a recent thing).

The way they get around this problem is to extend the size of the plastic nosebridge to cater for the Asian masses. GENIUS! Also, because we wanted to get the frames on their own at the shop, the nice storekeeper knocked 1000Y off the price of the frames which brought it down to 4200Y.

Few more hours of shopping and we needed to have lunch... I was getting homesick (ie code for me needing a break from ramen/katsudon and PASTRIES) - Enter the Colonel.

Ee Laine ordered a fried Salmon roll with tartare sauce and onion. When we opened up the paper packaging, we discovered that we get larger fish fingers back home.

Being the designated fatty in this tour group of two... I opted for the "Big Box" meal with an additional piece of "Fried Chicken with Japanese Seasoning"

The burger itself was about half the size of a McDonalds Cheeseburger back in Aussie land (now THAT's small). Then came the piece of original recipe drumstick. The drumstick itself was dry and there was something missing in the recipe. It just doesn't taste as good as it does back home... it was as if it was missing one of the secret herbs and spices (funnily enough, Nova 969 were trying to figure out what the secret ingredients were just before I left for Japan last week).

Before we knew it, we had covered the entire Canal City (took us about 5 hours to get across the 3 towers, 6 levels in each tower) - We had a brief break at the Canal where I took this pic (looked like I had run a marathon)

We decided to walk across the bridge into unchartered territory to see what was beyond the Canal of stink. A dark saloon drove past... I'm pretty sure it's full of underworld figures.

After about 2km, we found another Daimaru.. but this time we didn't go inside (I couldn't squeeze in another pastry from their basement of buttery goodness - nor could I afford the 5 figure yen starting value for any item within that building)

So we walked through it to see what was on the other side...

ANOTHER SHOPPING MALL!!!!

The shopping mall in the distance (called Vivre - not sure where that's from or if it was a typo at the time when they sent the plans to the neon sign makers). Within this mall is about another 8-9 levels of fashion retail. Except this time the pricing of the clothing is a lot less reasonable (about $200AUD for a jacket rather than the starting price of $400-$500 from the other premium stores we've been visiting over the past few days).

Ee finally spotted a jacket that she liked and we proceeded with the purchase... the shop said that they accepted Mastercard or Visa but my cards were declined for some reason (even though I've specifically walked into my bank and alerted them that I was travelling to Japan over these few weeks). I used a large portion of my Yen on this purchase and needed more...

After treking about 8km and trying 8 different ATMs, I finally made a breakthrough... Citibank... You are my saviour!

What I thought was strange when I asked the info desks at various places (shopping malls, info booths at bus and train stations) for an ATM, they asked "which bank"? It seems that you can only withdraw money from a certain bank if you have money with THEM. I don't believe their banks are interlinked but I could be wrong. The key was to locate the Cirrus/Maestro sticker on the ATM terminal - I found that out the hardway... I should have worked off that miniscule KFC Burger by now.

We headed back to Vivre to cover the upper levels that we missed during our ATM expedition and came across this little gem in the top floor of the Vivre shopping mall. It's called Hanjiro and the pricing of the goods in here was UBER reasonable. This store takes up the entire top level.

The garments and accessories here are either samples, runout stock or second hand (but in great condition). I picked up the following LEATHER belt for 290Y (about $4AUD)

We were pretty knackered at this stage (we've pretty much been shopping non stop for about 10 hours) and tried our hardest to see ONE more mall on the strip... Mitsukoshi.

Once we stepped inside, we realised it was like another Daimaru (LV, Chanel, Bvlgari etc greeted us) and we knew the goods in there were too rich for my blood (particularly if I can't use my credit card).

Defeated, we started crawling our way back to Canal city for a quick bite to eat before heading back to our hotel. Then I saw this baby glide past me. It's the new Nissan Fairlady 370Z. I believe it looks sooooo much better than the 350Z in real life.. I wasn't a fan of the new "Arrow" front/tail lights but it grew on me. It was a pity that this beauty was stuck in traffic... I would have loved to hear it rip down the stretch.

Alongside the Canal, these little kiosks popped out of nowhere (I was certain they weren't there a few hours ago). They sold hawker style Japanese food... prices looked really reasonable ($3-$5 AUD for a feed) but I was wasn't so concerned as to what they're leaving out to have their prices so low... it was more about what they were putting into the food to reduce the prices so significantly. I said no to food poisoning and possible hospitalisation and kept on walking.

When we got to Canal City again, we settled on this place... Don't know what it's called as there were no English writing anywhere in this restaurant. However, there was a small sign that stated in English that there was a 10% discount offered to tourists to dine there - provided you can submit a passport as proof. SCORE!

We placed our order and requested for 2 x hot green tea servings. They gave me the smallest cups I've ever drank from in my life.

In fact, the waitress had to refill my cup so often that she should have just brought a stool and set up camp next to me. Each cupful was about 1 gulp.

Here was my dinner... Yes it looks familiar... I ate the same thing last night - almost (as you can see, I am the adventurous type)... It was a pork cutlet battered and deep fried with katsu sauce, served with spinach mixed with ground peanuts, bamboo shoots, pickles, thick miso soup and a small side dessert of mochi with ground nuts. Verdict: This is possibly the best Katsu rice I've ever had. The cook has gone to great lengths to ensure that this was perfect. The cut of pork they had used was not too fatty and not too lean (if it was too lean, the meat would dry out and be chewy/stringy like jerky). The batter was crunchy/crispy, and a metal meshed platform was underneath the katsu to ensure that the oil does not collect at the bottom of the cutlet and make the base soggy. GENIUS! Complimented with all the other side dishes, this was a very luxurious take on what I'd consider to be Japanese fast food... A perfect 10 goes to the chef on this one.

Ee Laine's choice included all the same side dishes as my selection with her main being the teriyaki chicken. However, there was not enough chicken given and there was too much skin. The skin was soggy (should be grilled and crispy) and the sauce seemed like it was poured over the top when it should have been simmering with the chicken. A 3/10 was given as a verdict.

Fully bloated, we decided to walk back to our hotel from Canal City rather than taking the bus and it took us about half an hour. My feet are ready to fall off tonight.