Peter's Japan blog

Today will the farthest point from Tokyo I've ever been. That is to Fukuoka which is at the other end of the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen at 1179km from Tokyo. Osaka is right in the middle, so I only traveled about 650km today (in only 2.5 hours).

In Fukuoka is where the first Zen temple in Japan was built in 1195, the Shofukuji temple. It's not the original temple any more of course, but it looks quite old.

Then went to go look at the ruins of the old Fukuoka Castle and the Ohori park nearby. Was not much left of it and the park was too big to do all the way, because I was still quite tired.

Took the subway further on to check out the Fukuoka Tower. It's a tower of 130m with a large antenna on top of it and stands by the sea and is the only large building of this kind in the area. Wasn't much else to do there, so went back to Hakata station to take the Shinkansen back to Osaka. I did this by bus. Taking the bus in Japan is quite a different experience. Firstly you get on the bus at the middle, and go out at the front. When you step on the bus, you either stamp your card in the machine, or take a ticket. When you reach your destination, you go to the front, the the ticket in the machine and pay. Interesting fact (which I'm not 100% sure of). The ticket that you get has a number printed on it. At the front of the bus is a display with 32 numbers which represent the number on your ticket and displays the amount you need to pay. This amount changes according to how far you're going. If you think a little more about it, it's a strange but easy system. Also, the bus driver will almost say at which station he will stop, and also notifies the passengers who just rang the bell that he/she heard it and will stop at the next station. I'm not seeing this done in Belgium ;p Again, it shows the politeness in Japan.

Follow up: