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I wanted to experience ramen at Fukuoka’s Yatai (屋台). However, it was raining so the Yatai didn’t set up their shops. I settled for some between-the-rain-drops photos instead. The interesting clouds (and rain) from today’s photo (and this prior one) is due to the influence of a typhoon or taifu (台風) that was lurking just below Japan.
Kushida Jinja Ema (絵馬)
Watanabe San is hoping for some BIG (ビッグ) things to happen.
Fukuoka panorama
I had an interesting encounter with the group of people you can see in the far right portion of this six-photo photomerge. They were quite drunk (at 7 a.m.) and invited me to join them in their drinking. They had plenty of different drinks to choose from, but I declined their kind offer. We did chat for some time before taking photos together and parting ways. They work in Fukuoka’s abundant night industries (probably with shifts from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. or something similar) and began their party after work. Hence the early morning festivities. They were about to wrap things up and head home for bed. I, on the other hand, was trying to get a little sightseeing in before the forecasted rain began.
The main shrine for the Hakata Gion Yamakasa (博多祇園山笠) Festival during a late night downpour of rain
Yesterday’s photo of this shrine was taken during my morning walk at about 6 a.m. (Yes, jet lag sucks.)
Today’s pic is of the same place about 15 hours later. The rain was coming down in buckets. I came back through the shrine to take a brief rest from the rain, not to take photos, but the lit-up shrine looked too good to just leave without saving an image. I took this hand held with a shutter speed of 1/13th of a second so I’m a bit surprised that it came out without any shake.
櫛田神社
During the first half of July this shrine is the center of one of the most famous festivals in Japan (Hakata Gion Yamakasa or 博多祇園山笠). Someday I want to be in Fukuoka to witness this event. I saw preparations being made and video of past festivals. It looks absolutely crazy. Groups of men representing different parts of town race with an extremely heavy float on their shoulders around tight turns and for fairly long distances. Trip near the front of the float and your odds of not being trampled are close to zero. I hear there are some fairly serious injuries on a regular basis and minor injuries are common.
Fukuoka (including Yahoo! Dome) from top of Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk
Sorry for the missing post yesterday. I haven’t been able to access the internet from my laptop until now.
I took a tour of the Fukuoka Dome because no games were scheduled while I was in Fukuoka. Afterwards, I wandered over to the nearby Hilton. You can go to the top (no charge) for views of Fukuoka similar to those of the nearby Fukuoka Tower and save yourself 800 yen and possible crowds.