After our long flight, we were itching to get to our hotel to put away our luggage and get some rest. Kansai Airport to Osaka is relatively easy to reach but which kind of transport you take depends on which part of Osaka you want to go to. From Kansai International airport, you can go into the city with car, buses, taxi, ferry or train. Kansai airport is also the closest airport to Kyoto. It can easily be accessed by train. When I was researching information for our trip, I found that it depends which train companies you will use the most to get the most value. JR trains were the best option for us for what we wanted to do. We were also staying near Shin-Osaka so the fastest and most convenient for us was the JR Haruka Limited Express. It’s also great value if you go to Kyoto.

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Our 8 days Japan Itinerary was full of amazing experiences. It was the schatje’s first trip to Japan and my fourth. 90 percent of what we did was also new to me despite having been there before. It just means that Japan has a lot to offer. I divided the trip into two parts, around Osaka and Tokyo. We also wanted to ride the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo which takes 2.5 hours, also a first for me. It was expensive but definitely an experience. This is the schatje’s second foray into Asia after the Philippines. I thought it was a really nice place to explore for in Asia. We plan to visit at least one other Asian country whenever we go to the Philippines. It was also made possible with the good flight deal we had with Finnair and Cebu Pacific to the Philippines

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Fukuoka Shopping is fun. If we had more time, I would have hit a few stores but since that wasn’t the main purpose of this trip. The main shopping centers were Canal City and Tenjin. Well, mostly Tenjin. 😛 We just had to buy whatever we like when we pass through a place. We did alot 2 hours of shopping at Don Quijote on our last night in Fukuoka to get our beloved Japanese stash but other than that, we just bought what we could find. We didn’t have the time to go back to a place. Shopping in Fukuoka is fun. It’s not as crowded as Tokyo stores where a lot of things are always out of stock. We noticed that prices has gone a bit up since the last time we were there in 2015 judging from the price of a pack of Kitkat. Haha. I’ll show you some of the things I got.

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If you google Atago Shrine, you will most likely get the one from Tokyo and Kyoto. Apparently there are many Atago Shrines in Japan, about 900 of them. The Atago Shrine Fukuoka is not a famous shrine. It is located west of the city on a slope. It’s hard to get to and since public transport is limited to get to it, you have to go up to it by foot. There are advantages for this of course. This means that it is usually not crowded. You can take your time visiting the site.

According to the sign above on the site, it is known for monthly visits of its worshipers. It is said to have miraculous power with extinguishing fire, improving luck, bringing long life, and making business prosper.

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Ramen Stadium in Canal City is located on the 5th floor. The Ramen Stadium has different ramen shops representing different kinds of ramen from all over Japan like the map shown below. It gives you the different ramens from different regions. We were there at around 7pm and it was not crowded at all.

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We bought the Daifazu Yanagawa Kankou Ticket at Nishitetsu Tenjin Station. It costs 2,930 per person or about 1,300 pesos. I think it’s really worth it for 3 train tickets and a free Yanagawa canal tour especially in Japan. Yanagawa is about an hour away from Fukuoka. They just cut out parts of your ticket when you enter the station. Just check the schedules if you have a time that you set but trains in between are pretty regular. They have trains that leave every 30 minutes I think. The ticket includes the Yanagawa Canal Tour. It takes you around the town of Yanagawa via the canals.  It’s actually called Yanagawa punting I think. The tour itself costs 1,600 yen so it’s a really good packaged deal.

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We were at the Tenjin Underground Shopping complex window shopping when we saw this line in front of this really cool looking store. Whenever we see lines in Japan, it’s always a good sign. We’ve never been disappointed. So we check it out. It seems like they were just selling one product – it’s the Bake cheese tart.

According to the Bake Cheese Tart website, BAKE’s freshly baked cheese tarts have their origins in Kinotoya, a long-established Western confectionery store in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Their tarts started out as delectable chilled blueberry cheese tarts.

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We can’t leave Fukuoka without having some katsu. 😀 We were at Tenjin Underground Shopping Complex and we ask the information desk if she can recommend any katsu restaurants in the area. She told us about Hamakatsu and another one but Hamakatsu won because it was closer to where we were at. We even passed it since it only had Japanese signage. We went on street level to see the signs pointing us down to Hamakatsu which is the restaurant we just passed. I think they’re pretty popular and it’s a national katsu restaurant chain with locations all over Japan. There’s even a few in Thailand.

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Ohori Park is one of the major parks in Fukuoka. Ohori means large moat. The Fukuoka Castle ruins is also located near this park. If you ask about it, it would be better to say Ohorikoen. They recognize that more. Koen means park in Japanese. We went here since there were still Cherry Blossom trees in full bloom like the one pictured above. In most places, they have already fallen down.

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Nokonoshima Island Park is an island off the city of Fukuoka. It is famous for its flowers that changes with the season. In Spring, it was full of cherry blossom, tulips and rape seed flowers. It is very accessible from the city and only takes maybe one hour to get there, depends what kind of transport you choose to travel with. We spent about half a day in this beautiful island taking lots of pictures. It was really pretty.

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