1-3-11

Today is our last day in Japan. We will board the ferry later in the evening to sail back to Busan. We got up and had Japanese ramen for breakfast. We packed all of our stuff and checked out of the hotel around 9am.

We decided to spend the day in Fukuoka to see more of the temples in the city, Fukuoka tower, and the castle ruins. We took the bus to see two Shinto and one Buddhist temple, all of which were close to each other. The first Shinto temple was very similar to the others that we had visited earlier in the week: Large complexes with vendors selling things to use in different ceremonies. We then visited the Buddhist temple, which was home to the largest wooden Buddha in Japan (sadly no pictures allowed). It was so massive, one of the largest Buddhas I have seen. The other Shinto temple we went to was a small shrine. It was built in the 1200's by some fishermen who supposedly caught a mermaid and buried it under the place where the shrine is today. It was a small pagoda with some places to make offerings. There was also a graveyard behind the temple with tall black stones marking the graves.

After visiting the temples, we went to Fukuoka tower. It is one of the tallest buildings in Japan. It was a lot of fun to see the city from above, and to see the islands out in the ocean.

We then went to a third Shinto temple and the Fukuoka Castle ruins. The temple was very similar to the others, except it was built on a larger piece of land. It felt more like a carnival with vendors selling objects and people running from place to place. After the temple, we went to the ruins. The Castle is over 500 years old. Unfortunately it was destroyed about 200 years ago, and has never been restored to its former state. There are remnants of the castle: a wall here and a pathway there. It reminded me a lot of the Mayan ruins I had seen in Belize: Nature merging with the abandoned man-made architecture. We saw some very old trees that were a good three feet wide. They were absolutely majestic and gave the area a calm atmosphere.


After visiting the ruins, we took a bus back to Shimonozaki, the place where we board our ferry. We went to buy some dinner and snacks for the ferry, seeing that the food on the ferry was very expensive. We began to leave port as the sun began to set. As the sun was setting, we went on the deck to say goodbye to the Land of the Rising Sun.