I have been in Fukuoka about a day and a half now. The hotel is quite nice (4 stars!), and very centrally located. It seems to be located in the middle of a giant shopping mall. I explored briefly after my arrival, and was struck by how much more modern Fukuoka feels when compared with Kyoto. This is not necessarily a bad thing–but everything is much more closely concentrated. Ironically, there are more American resturaunts but far fewer people and places with English menus.

This is where I had dinner last night. It’s called a yatai, and it is basically a plastic tent set up around a portable kitchen and tiny dining area. They are all over this part of Fukuoka, and have very good, very excellent food.

The owners did not speak English, but one of the guests spoke some, so we communicated through that and the handful of phrases I have learned. He was able to guess from the way I spoke the Japanese that I had been in Kansai (the area where Kyoto is) prior to arriving in Fukuoka.

These are the owners of the yatai, a father-daughter team (I think?) who are quite wonderful. They were delighted that I was attempting to communicate with them in Japanese, and began providing different foods for me to sample. They were very impressed that I know how to use chopsticks, and that I like Japanese food.

The yatai is an oddly intimate environment, when one considers that it is basically people who duck in under the tarp from the street. I really truly enjoyed eating there.

I spent most of today on work-related issues and then heading down to the <a href=”http://www.kyuhaku.com/”>Kyushu National Museum</a>. Please forgive my not posting much about it, as I don’t think work would appreciate my blogging about it. Let’s just leave it at that if you are in Kyushu, you should see the Kyushu National Museum. It is the first contemporary museum design I’ve seen that I like. I like it because it is designed to BE a museum, not an arboretum, greenhouse or weird blobular shape. Their pan-Asia gallery is also very interesting.

Upon returning to Fukuoka, I wandered back out. I had dinner in a resturaunt where we communicated through the dictionary section of my Japan travel guide. The waiter was quite nice about it, though.

Tomorrow is my last free day in Japan. I’m planning on doing a bit of shopping, heading back to Dazaifu to check out the Tenjin shrine, and then head a bit further out to the onsen hot springs. For right now, I’m going to continue relaxing. (I took a bath in the tub, which is 2 feet deep. It is the first bathtub I have been able to completely submerge myself in. I got some fun bubbly stuff at the local drugstore.) Anyway. Good night for now!