I left early Monday morning, not entirely sure what I was doing. The cafeteria wasn't open yet, and I was dining on an exquisite makeshift breakfast of ritz crackers and Pepsi. As I said, exquisite. When I walked to the highway bus station, I went straight to the info counter and asked the woman what the hell I was supposed to do (except in less of a vernacular, mostly due to my lack of impolite speech knowledge in Japanese than for a lack of desire of wanting to insult the staff) and she politely obliged by telling me that this is not where I want to be. Through a combination of my limited Japanese and the international language of pointing at things, we came to the conclusion that I needed to walk over to the next bus station up the hill and wait there. Same service, different stop. Oh.
So continuing up the hill, I'm still hungry and I grab some apple juice because why not. I figured that this would tide me over til I got to Fukuoka. Unfortunately, the bus was a good 15 minutes late, and as these things work, I was entirely capable of stopping in the bus station and getting some actual food in me, but for fear of missing the bus that just wasn't gonna fly. So myself and three strangers delighted in conversation about the state of things and where our destinations lie.
Or we just stood there in awkward silence avoiding eye contact and miserably waiting in the heavy winds for the bus to show up.
The bus was nice. Spacious, and not many people on board. Plus there was a movie playing for the ride, and headphones that were available for us that I wasn't informed of til my second trip, so I watched an entire movie without sound on the way there. It was a pretty good movie, but it seemed like it jumped around a bit. Also it had the obligatory Japanese girl is secretly a government created organic supercomputer that controls a war-sub plotline. YAWN.
Here's a picture from the bus:
That last one is from right into Fukuoka. The whole trip last a bit over 2 hours, so all in all not bad, and I could still feel my butt afterwards so that's always an indication that I hadn't been sitting too long. Although I apparently had my leg resting on the "Please stop!" button the whole ride without realizing it, and managed NOT to set it off, which is a feat amongst itself.
The first act after leaving the bus was to get some damn food inside of me. So I went to a random ramen shop, and kind of walked in dumbfounded. I guess Beppu has enough western influence for the shops to still be kind of user friendly, but in Fukuoka you're supposed to just sort of sit down and hope somebody notices you. I know places like that exist in the US, but I don't go to those places because they suck and are for jerks. Jerks like you maybe, but not for me. I immediately burned my tongue beyond repair on the ramen when it was served, rendering my taste buds relatively ineffective for the majority of the trip. Dang.
Then I wasted time in the arcade like a moron. "Hey! I'm in a different city for a couple days, what should I do? I know! Play video games!" There was a Half Life 2 sort of immersive... pod....thing..... and that was pretty cool, I must admit.
I really only had three goals in Fukuoka: Go to the Robosquare, Go to the ACROS building, and eat some food. Eating food is basically a day to day goal for me, but I felt like including it anyways. I feel that it's important. Out of those things I managed to get to the ACROS building and eat some food on the first day.
Here's the ACROS building.
Yeah, it's pretty big. The front is a garden stairway maze... thing. It was closed when I went there so I figured I'd go back and try again the next day, but I did go inside and it sort of was what you'd expect it to be. Soft decor with orchestrated music playing over the loudspeaker. I got me a milkshake and walked around the place taking it in. Was nice.
Afterwards I really wanted to see the Robosquare but because I'm a moron and figured I'd just wander around til I found things, I didn't actually have a map or an idea of where to find it. It was actually remarkable that I found the ACROS building in the first place. I knew it was in Tenjin but had no idea where it was exactly. I've deduced that I have the blessing of Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence. Even if I don't know where I'm going, I will either find it or find myself in a location that will aid me in finding it. I got lost and wound up finding a road sign pointing to Tenjin and followed it.
Similarly, when I wanted to find my hostel, I had no idea where I was, and I wandered far enough in the right direction to find a bus marked in the direction of the station that I knew the hostel was close to.
And then instead of taking the bus, I walked there. Because I am an idiot.
The station info woman was really nice, and I thought I confused her by sayin hostel. I didn't actually know the word for it and my dictionary didn't have it in there, so I just said "hosuteru" and she smiled and gave me a sideways glance, then started rummaging through things under her desk. As I meagerly tried to explain what it was in sparse, confused wordings, she produced a flyer that had a map from the station and room fees for the hostel that I was looking for. Awesome.
The hostel was also easy to get to. About three blocks away, and the guy who checked me in spoke really good English. I got stuck in a dorm room because I didn't care to pay more, and there were two bunk beds and little space. There was a Canadian guy in there named David who was friendly enough, and then I left to see if I could find something to do.
I didn't, but Fukuoka is pretty at night, so there's that.
When I got back my roommate was sleeping so I decided I should be nice and sleep too instead of waking him up. The room was unlocked, so I locked it, and there was a key on my bunk for some reason, so I put that on the desk.
About two hours later somebody tried opening the door and knocking hard. Turns out there was a THIRD guy in the room that I wasn't informed about, and I had locked him out. Aaah.... my bad. He seemed more confused than upset though, and promptly settled in, turning the light in and making a bunch of noise, but hey, public rooms, you take what you can get. The place is called Khaosan in case anybody cares. As far as hostels go I'd imagine that it's pretty nice. The beds are pretty comfortable, there is a fridge, there is free internet and a kitchen, etc. All the people there are really friendly as well, so that's good.
Second day!
Woke up almost too late, got dressed, and jetted. Nabbed some food from a place called Jet Diner which had some pretty good American diner style food, no worse than the kind you'd get on the highway in the states, really. About the same price, unfortunately, but I was hungry and I was on vacation, so it's forgivable. Although they did give me coleslaw, and they should be grateful that I spared them for that affront.
I went back to the ACROS to try my hand at conquering my fears by climbing to the top of a building and hanging over the guard rail. Unfortunately my pseudo-cide was thwarted by the maze being closed due to inclement weather. It had rained a bit granted, but what's dangerous about climbing 12 story staircases when they're coated in rainwater and loose soil?
I will NEVER understand the Japanese.
Using my crude hand drawn map of the area around the ROBOSQUARE TNC Building, I began making my way in an arbitary direction, because I wasn't a damn tic near the location on the map. I was actually so far in a direction not there that I couldn't even guess where that was. So, disappointed I decided looking for more things to do. I eventually came across the ruins of some castle who's name I forgot to write down and also don't feel like looking up. They were pretty cool, though, and I don't recall them being on any of the tourist information that I looked at so it was actually a really pleasantly surprising find.
I was actually debating taking a nap on a bench I found there, but there were crows there. Lots of crows. And the less I moved, the more of them there were. And crows travel in murders. So I opted to get up and leave.
Also: Look at these ducks! Look at how many freaking ducks there are! So many ducks! It's madness! Cute, sleeping, numerous ducks!
After leaving the raven haven, I saw a big pointy tower...thing. You can see it in this picture:
That's a bit closer than when I first saw it, but it's the same tower, on the left of the picture. I was under the impression that it was the Fukuoka Tower that I had heard mention of, and not having any better ideas I decided to head there. And it was another long walk. I passed a Hard Rock Cafe and the Yahoo Dome on the way there, and there were a group of buff white guys talking. I'm assuming they were part of the local baseball team. They sort of looked at me like they were expecting me to approach them, but I honestly couldn't care less about that non-sport, so I ignored them and took some photos of the area.
I did make it over to the tower, and I guessed right on that pointy number being it. Here's a shot from the bottom of it.
And one from the top.
It was 600 yen admission to the tower, and they gave me an in depth tourists guide with a map of the city, some coupons and some useful Japanese phrases. Oh, great, I guess they assume this is everyone's first stop. Dammit.
Anyways, the top of the tower was really nice, but there was no toilet. I feel the need to inform you because they felt the need to inform me. There was also a sign there that showed where on the horizon respective countries were, and how far away they were.
About an inch in from the top left, follow that 11,500 kilometers and then you're in California. Standing there actually made me feel really lonely. I'm on top of the world looking into infinity, and I still can't see home.
Also, I took a photo of my reflection for those of you who desperately need to see pictures of me:
And then got some ice cream on the way down from the tower, because I don't know how to stop spending money. Yowza! Was really good ice cream, though, and had two sticks of pocky in it. It was twist but one of the sticks was strawberry. This irritates my inner OCD. Vanilla pocky exists in Japan, but for some reason nobody likes it.
I did find Robosquare right after that, as it was about a block away from Fukuoka Tower. It was... lackluster. The tour guides made it seem like a wonderful park full of robots that you can play with and that danced for you. They did do that. Sort of. There were scheduled shows that were basically glorified puppet shows for kids, and there were robots on display with "Do Not Touch!" signs all over them. Although I did get to play with a Pleo dinosaur thing, which was neat, and some Indian(possibly?) girl was working there that they sent over to assist me in English. She was really nice, and I felt bad for half blowing her off due to my exhaustion from walking around all of Fukuoka. Not at the time, mind you, what with the exhaustion and all. But in retrospect.
I took a bus back to Tenjin station, because according to the wonderful map I got from the Tower, that is where I wanted to go to find my bus home. Unfortunately it was about that helpful, because I didn't want Tenjin station, I wanted Neshitetsu Tenjin Station, which wasn't on the map exactly. In its place was Fukuoka Station, so I assumed a name change and looked around, only to realize that it was a subway station, not a bus station. Confused beyond my normal levels, I tried to rationalize this, and decided stalking a businessman to his next location would work. And again through my Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence, following him led my upstairs to the secret bus station on the third floor that isn't mentioned on the map for some reason because Fukuoka is run by dumb meanies. So remember, kids. If you're lost, be sure to follow strange men around until they lead you to where you need to be!
Having about an hour to kill before the next bus, I decided I'd spend most of that looking around for the electronics store I had found the night before with a good deal on some portable hard drives that I could use. Honestly, I ran into this place three times the night before and I could not find it when I wanted to go there. Last second I did find it, got my HD, nabbed a sandwich from McDonald's, hopped the bus, and enjoyed the movie.
This was a Hama-chan movie. Which I'm pretty sure is a line of movies similar to Steve Martin or something, in that this guy used to be funny, but he just kept making movies until people stopped caring anymore. This one started off with him getting the entire office building together into a musical number. That right there sets the mood for fantastic. Then he gets home and his son complains to him about how this kid at school has all this cool stuff that he doesn't, so Hama-chan is all "Well come on, you gotta have something that he doesn't," so his son replies with "Hmmm.... yeah! A hot mom!" Which apparently isn't weird at all. In response, Hama-chan hugs his son, tosses him out the door and locks him outside, then breaks into song which proceeds into him making love to his wife for a good 12 seconds while magic papiér-maché fish float around and words pop up on screen making fun of his short endurance.
I'm entirely serious.
Then he gets sick of work, goes on vacation and gets drunk with some token black guy. He gets SO drunk, in fact, that he winds up on a US Navy ship passed out in one of the random rooms. Turns out his token black friend is in the navy, and they all got so drunk he wound up there. The rest of the movie involves him trying to get off the boat and going crazy, using an American flag to catch fish that scream and get him caught, and he goes home, and gets a promotion and everyone loves him so on so forth.
Really Japan.
Anyways, I missed my stop through all that. Actually, I didn't miss it so much as I had a dumb moment or a combination of my dumbness and the bus driver hating me. Whenever we got to a stop, the bus driver would announce the name of the place, then stop the bus, then get off and wait to help people unload. He didn't actually say the name of my bus, he said "Thank you" and then stopped the bus and got out. I honestly thought he was just checking the tire or something. By the time I realized it I was in downtown Beppu and had to waste a ticket just to get back to campus.
Yargh.
Ah well, the whole trip was fun. Aside from the hostel guy and the girl at the Robosquare I managed to go a whole two days living in another city, entirely in Japanese, and not having any problems doing so. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that I'm at least at the level that I need to be, and I'm pretty proud of that I'd say. I'd look forward to doing it again, maybe not at the same place, but definitely again.
Check out the photo album, as I said there are a bunch of photos there now. Not necessarily from Fukuoka, but most of them are.
Updates should be regular again now, and apparently everyone checks this on Saturday (correct me if I'm wrong) so I'll be making those posts count more if I can. Look forward to that.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment