Horrors! A Ship Tour. But we’ve got the credits, so, instead of our original plan to stay in Fukuoka and wander around the city, we signed up for the Dazaifu tour which sounded pretty decent. A gorgeous morning and sunrise greets us as we complete our normal morning activities, then head to the World Stage to wait for the tour.
We are fairly well organized and out the door easily, meeting our tour guide who is nice and knowledgeable as he gives us info about Fukuoka and the city we are traversing through. A surprise bonus here – we get to go to the Fukuoka tower. Wasn’t listed in our itinerary, but we’re not complaining! The tower is the tallest seaside tower in Japan, soaring almost 800 feet high with 3 viewing decks. (They take a few liberties here as they can’t call it the tallest tower because the Tokyo Tower is higher – good marketing spin though!) Our little group heads out to get in line – with some confusion on the part of a few of our fellow travelers (not going there) – keeping ourselves occupied by snapping pictures of the Tower mascot (so cute) and the SoftBank Hawks baseball guy cut out (remember baseball is a huge thing here and this team is one of the top teams, as a matter of fact the Hilton named their huge hotel next door after the team, calling it the Sea Hawk for the proximity to the sea).
After about a 25-minute wait, we crowd into the glass elevator to take the quick 2 minute journey to the top of the tower. The views are fantastic – back across the city to the mountains in the distance and out over the water. The Ferry terminal and Marison Ocean Resort sticking out into the water like an island are most photogenic.
On the 2nd floor viewing platform, there is a shop and a photo stop where you can buy a heart shaped lock to put on a rod up here in the tower and of course all the normal touristy trinkets – oh and more stamps! We are loving all the stamps everywhere, these with the cute little mascot on them.
Done with the viewing, we head downstairs to wait for the rest of the group. Our guide has very sweetly told us that it might be best for us to grab some snacks from the Family Mart located on the ground floor here in the tower, as once we arrive in Dazaifu, it will be crowded and we probably won’t have time for lunch. We comply happily, grabbing an egg salad sandwich and a cheese roll that we munch on as we start our journey out to Dazaifu, passing the aforementioned Hilton, as well other interesting scenic points along the way (including this one cemetery across the river from the road).
Arriving in Dazaifu we are greeted by the throngs of crowds – oh my word! The Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine is one of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, receiving over 10 million visitors a year (most of them here today!). Michizane, a writer that loved to read, learn and write calligraphy, was exiled from the Imperial Court in Kyoto on trumped up charges. He moved to Dazaifu and persevered under harsh conditions making his character and spirit so admired, there are 12,000 shrines dedicated to him across Japan – with Dafaizu being the most famous. His spirit is revered by the world as the God of Learning and of Sincerity, which makes the shrine incredibly popular for students to come and ask for good grades. And oh boy, have they come! There are thousands of them everywhere.
Somehow, we manage to navigate the narrow main road into the town of Dazaifu, with our group intact while winding our way through all the students to arrive at the city information center where our guide takes us through a little historical presentation before wading back out into the masses to arrive at the main entrance to the shrine.
Our guide tells us the legend of how the Shrine was built here – when Michizane’s remains was being carried in an ox-drawn carriage, the ox collapsed here and refused to move. It was believed that this was due to Michizane’s last wishes – where the bull stops will be where my grave is located. Can’t argue with that. There is even a commemorative bull statue at the entrance to the shrine – with a huge line of students waiting to rub the bull’s horns or nose (and get photos) for good luck.
Even though crowded, we do manage to make our way through the gorgeous grounds, across the bridge over the pond and waterways toward the main shrine, where we take time for a photo opp with the Qilin statue – a spirit horse that is the logo on Kirin beer. Perfect Ed photo.
Circumnavigating the shrine, we wander around some of the more than 6,000 plum trees (not in bloom currently, darn it – planted here because Michizane wrote a poem about plum trees) then back past what we think is the oldest tree here – a 1500 year old champhor tree.
Some of the garden areas could be quite serene – if it weren’t for all the people. But you can definitely get the gist of the feeling and the spirit here if you look closely.
Done with the our shrine visit, some folks walked up through the forest to the National Museum. We decided we didn’t need to do that and headed back down through the village (ok, touristy town) with our ultimate destination the brewery we had spied close to the parking area. On the way we perused the many cute displays at the shops and did succumb to the treat for which Dafaizu is famous: Umegae Mochi rice cakes. And we are lucky enough to be here on the 17th of the month when this one store (and there are many lining the village street) is selling the special Kyushu National Museum 10th anniversary rice cake: The ancient black rice plum blossom mochi. Oh yum! Not only can we try it, we can watch them make it through the big plate glass window that opens up on the bakery.
Moving on, we grab our seats outside at the Dafaizu brewery enjoying our beer along with a great croquette – how can we refuse a croquette? – and enjoy watching all the students passing by, especially the kids with the chicken on a stick. They were so fun.
I hop off my stool to take a picture of Ed and his beer, when another cruise passenger – whose husband is sitting next to us having a beer – offers to take our pictures together and quickly becomes a Mohammed like photographer! Tons of great pictures, always fun to commemorate our beer drinking!
Hitting the souvenir store at the parking lot complex on the way out, we buy way too many candy and cookie treats. Again, how can you not when there are pictures of Mt. Fuji on the chocolate part of the cookies?
Then it is on the bus for the hour-plus ride home, passing through the Tenjin area of Fukuoka (where we originally had planned to wander) with this great bug statue at the convention center – and on back to the ship. All in all, a very decent ship tour.
The sail out has some great long views back to Fukuoka, the arena, the Hilton and the Tower – all of which we had seen from landside – and then it is off into the sea heading for our next port of Sochko, Korea.
Andiamo 