10/22 – Fukuoka in the rain

It is an ugly day out there today – the rain is coming down in sheets – and we have a full day of city exploring planned. Ah well, our rain gear is coming in handy on this trip. Our morning goes as normal, gym, breakfast, fast shower then out to the terminal to take the first shuttle into Fukuoka. Rain be damned!

The shuttle is perfect, as it drops us off at the City Hall, which is centrally located to everywhere we want to go today. Since it is still so early, we wander through the city hall building, which is essentially a huge tourist information center on the ground floor plus the bonus of a little coffee shop off to the side. Cappuccino for a rainy day – great way to waste some time before heading out into the downpour on our way to our first stop: The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.

In terms of wacky art museum – this one takes the cake! Let me tell you. Celebrating 25 years as the first museum to specialize in modern and contemporary Asian art, it is filled with the most imaginative, yet totally bizarre, exhibits we have ever seen. Starting with Camel, by Huang Yong Ping, which depicts the scripture from Matthew, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” in the form of a life-size camel kneeling on a Muslim prayer rug with a needle through its nose. Along with the scripture quote, in French, inscribed in its fur. Uh huh.

We move onto Spawn by Lin Tianmiao, a renowned Chinese female artist who uses her own self-image for the body printed on the hanging screen and the balls of string to indicate the number of ovum created by an ovary in a lifetime. A really cool exhibit though (honestly) is the montage entitled “All Eyes Look to the Sky.” It is a collection of small thumbnail photos of Indian and Pakistani movie stars, all put together to recreate a photo from the National Day air show by Rashid Rana. It is fascinating and just amazing how he did it. Talk about time consuming! But by far the absolute weirdest is video entitled “Uterus Man” by Lu Yang. A 10-minute anime-like video that chronicles the exploits of super hero Uterus Man who is powered by blood that can fly, uses a sanitary napkin as a skateboard and the placenta as a defense mechanism. You cannot make this stuff up.

Moving on, we reach some much more tame and interesting exhibits varying from a long video about an ancient Malay king, a sad room with photos of Khmer Rouge victims, Some Buddha and Mandela depictions, a fabulous exhibit of woven portraits and cloths, some that are even deconstructed so we can see the actual threads stretching across the room and some strange embroidered gauze materials used as shadows across portraits on the walls. That was an experience!

Finally through most of the weirdness, we move upstairs where there are 2 special exhibits by local artists, one that particularly interests us is the Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s One-Stroke Calligraphy exhibit. This is just amazing – after Master Yun lost his sight due to complications from diabetes, he began creating calligraphy with just one-stroke. All these silk wall hangings contain his writings: The twenty foremost things in Life. In addition to just the sheer fascination of this artwork, there is a hands-on table where we can practice like Master Yun – using disposable facemasks as eye masks! Too fun. And also so instructive. That was totally hard – it takes a lot of dedication and know how to do this in one stroke and blind! We can’t do it in many strokes with full eyesight! But our message still comes through….look closely at the last photo.

There is another exhibition in the next room called “Please listen to me” where the artist is focused on trying to break the barriers of time and space with his paint brush. We don’t quite understand it, but it has something to do with inserting a little red clad monk (we think) in every painting. Whatever the artist meant, the paintings are really interesting and the snow-covered mountain set just gorgeous to look at.

We’ve actually spent quite a lot of time here, enough that it is just about lunch time, so off we go in search of sustenance. We had pinpointed a little diner, Nagahama number One, that is known for its Nagahama Ramen, a local specialty. Serving food since 1971 (starting in food stalls), they have a little place about 10 minutes away. Luckily, we were able to walk most of the way through a long, covered shopping arcade, sparing us from the downpour. Arriving at the restaurant, we were still too early and had to wait in line (2^nd fortunately) under a narrow little awning until the place opened up. It was the best! Truly teeny with only about 12 seats, we were shown to the counter where we ordered our gyoza (yum) and the Special Ramen and Wonton Ramen, which they prepared right in front of us. Fabulous! And so lucky to be first – the place fills up fast and once we were done the line was wrapping around the corner!

Our next stop was what I had thought would be the highlight, the Hakata Machiya Furusatokan Folk Museum, that showcases the culture and daily life of Fukuoka city in the Meiji and Taisho periods. They have hands on exhibits and papier mache painting and different craft type things. Well, not so much! First of all, this is where the ship tours are, and it is packed. Second of all it is pouring again, and most of the cultural displays are in the form of different residential buildings of old. Meaning small, long and narrow wooden houses with one center hallway, packed with people. Ugh. We ended up walking through one of the houses, then sitting outside under the roof eaves in their Japanese garden while the rain poured down, watching the antics of the other cruise ship passengers! That was entertainment in and of itself.

The museum experience is saved though, as there are many more interesting cultural exhibits on 3 levels in a more modern building next to the old houses. We had timed it right so that most of the tours were leaving and had the place pretty much to ourselves (except for a few people who knew they needed to leave for their tour but didn’t! Uh huh, ship tours!). One level is completely focused on the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival with awesome miniature models of the people participating as well as the floats, plus great video about the festival in Fukuoka. These people are definitely festival crazy! It’s amazing.

Another room holds intricately detailed Hakata Dolls, a long-standing tradition of sculpted clay dolls made specifically in Hakata. There are dolls representing some of the local myths, and the ever so popular Musha-Mono dolls, warrior dolls, that are traditionally popular on Children’s Day. There is Shibaraku, a story of poetical justice where the hero, Gongoro Kagemasa, fights against an evil lord. And Mushi-no Ne, a poem about a lady lying in the garden at night with her heart withering. Very beautiful.

Near the dolls is also the papier mache area, where there are 2 artists working who show us what they are doing and ensue upon a long discussion about the art. They have some cute pieces here, mostly holiday related, but still. If we had the time (and the desire) we probably could have stayed for a session, but that’s all right. We’re sort of done here for the day.

Leaving the Folk Museum, we did manage to visit 1 shrine (there were 3 we wanted to visit but the rain put a stop to those plans!) – the Kushida Shrine. Basically because it was literally on our way back to the shuttle! Known for being the host of the famous Gion Yamakasa Festival held in July, in addition to the typical – and beautiful – Torii gates and shrine ornamentation, there is an actual Kazariyama Festival float right there on the grounds. Totally cool. And man, that float is monstrous! It towers above us for 30+ feet. These things are so big, they don’t parade them down the streets any longer because they would hit the power lines – they are that tall! The tall floats are displayed around the city as decorations, and smaller floats called Kakiyama are made and raced through the streets.

And that’s a wrap! Not wanting to chance the rain any longer, we booted it back to the shuttle stop, passing modern skyscrapers and a cool living building that has a garden on outside terraced levels.

At the shuttle, we are at the end of a really long line, and figure it will take at least one more bus for us to get on. But no, we actually make it on easily because the people in front of us don’t want to go for some reason – I don’t know – I think they got confused because they thought the bus was full but weren’t paying attention to the little pull down seats? Who knows, but they didn’t have to ask us twice – we’re on the bus, back to the ship, for a beautiful sail away – now in clear, gorgeous weather. Eh, the adventures of traveling.