家族と福岡で (With family in Fukuoka, vol. 2)

The plans for Sunday were quite open for me and my family. We decided to not to travel anywhere further after the previous days so Nokonoshima island in Fukuoka seemed to be a suitable attraction. We took a subway to Muromi and walked to the windy beach. From there we went to buy ferry tickets to the island and enjoyed filled baguettes, something non-typical Japanese food. When we reached the island after a 10-minute ferry ride, we stopped by at the restaurant area before heading to the Nokonoshima Island Park, the flower park in the Northern part of the island. When we walked to the bus stop and checked the timetable, we noticed that the previous bus had left quite soon after the ferry arrived to the island and the next bus would come after 45 minutes. It was about 3,5 kilometers to the other side of the island but we decided to reach at least the top of the hill by foot to see the view from there. It didn't take much time to realize that the buses actually drove more often than once in an hour so we could have just waited for the next one at the bus stop. But in fact we agreed later that it was good that we had missed the bus. We saw much of the nature and the living on the island and got some nice exercise when walking uphills and downhills all the way to the park. Even a short rain shower didn't dispirit us.

After finally reaching the park we felt like being in the Netherlands because of all the flowers. The view to the sea was amazing and the whole place with different kind of outdoor games and restaurants seemed like a nice place to come to spend one or two entire days. But we only had a quick visit there and then took a bus back to the ferry.

We wanted to have a dinner in an izakaya (an informal Japanese gastropub) in the evening when we got back to Hakata but one of the near-by izakaya restaurants was too difficult to find and the other one was closed. We ended to to go to a restaurant that served different kind of small dishes too (like in an izakaya). They didn't have an English menu and I could understand maybe one third of the Japanese one but we managed to order different kind of good (and interesting) dishes. The chef didn't seem to enjoy the way we ordered food and I realized the reason afterwards when other customers started to come about one hour after us. Everybody else ordered a bowl of ramen and maybe one side dish. Then I understood that the place was actually a ramen restaurant where the staff is prepared to serve bowls of ramen for the customers but we ordered only one ramen for all of us and many different kind of side dishes the izakaya way. No wonder the chef didn't give us smiles because he had to work super hard to make all the dishes for us early in the evening when the were still only a couple of employers working that time...

Pig legs

On Monday we I had the last day with my family in Japan. We started it with one of the traditional Japanese art, ikebana. I had got free tickets for us all from my teacher of the volunteer Japanese class. We saw many arrangements and a demonstration when two Japanese women did ikebana. After that some people from the audience (including me and two of my friends) got to try to make their own arrangements too. Everyone had the same plants to use but the outcomes were quite different. That was my first ikebana experience ever.

After a very Western style lunch (hamburger steak and oven potatoes) I showed my family the Ohori Park that was very nice place to be on a sunny spring day. Even I saw a new area there when we went to see to ruins of the Fukuoka Castle. Because the cherry trees had started blooming, the park was full of people having picnic under the blossoms. And adding some food-selling stands to that it reminded me of Finnish vappu.

Finally I had to show my visitors my every-day places, the university and the dormitory. At the university we went to meet also the lovely person in charge of the international students and she seemed really happily surprised to meet my family too. When we got to my dormitory, I asked to house lady if I could show my visitors around. (Normally all the visitors are allowed to come only to the lobby, not to the floors.) She came to us and asked if the visitors were my friends and when I answered that they are my family, her face changed from suspicious to happy and she said I surely can show them my room and the places.

Since we were in my neighborhoods, I needed to take my family to have the cheap ramen close by and then we continued to play some darts and drumming game and the have free ice cream with soft drinks in the book store next to the ramen restaurant. Something different to experience for my visitors before they had to return to the hotel to sleep early for the next day's flight.

It was a nice vacation week also for me, I felt like an excited tourist too when visiting all the new places. Once again I got to realize that I have learned some Japanese here because it was mostly me who dealt with everything during that week and I always spoke in Japanese. As far as I understood, also my family felt relieved when they had someone to speak for them when the local people didn't feel comfortable with English. It is actually cool how I have learned to manage with Japanese in half a year even though I still often don't understand written or spoken Japanese I face. Soon I will learn more again since the second semester will start in two days!