Author: Chloe Kirk

Who has heard of Fukuoka? I know at least I sure hadn’t before coming to Japan.  Japan is made up of many islands,  but the main three islands are Hokkaido (where Sapporo is) in the north, the main island including Tokyo and Kyoto and Osaka, and the southern island including Fukuoka and Nagasaki. Fukuoka is one of the largest cities in the the southern island and is known for its unique foods as well as being the home of wisteria flowers (called fuji flowers in Japanese) during the end of April and beginning of May. When I found out Fukuoka was home to the spectacular wisteria flowers I booked a plane ticket almost immediately!

I planned to only spend a weekend in Fukuoka, one night and two days, so I woke up at 4AM to get to Fukuoka for 8AM! It was empty when I got in, but that made it the perfect time to scope out Fukuoka’s less well known temples. Some of them are even world heritage sites!

At around 10 AM, the tour buses full of tourists (mostly Japanese) came and so I decided to move onto lunch. (Yes I know it was super early for lunch but I ate breakfast at 4:30AM on the train to the airport!) Fukuoka is famous for their ramen, which uses thinner noodles than normal and a thicker pork broth. I found a restaurant that is famous for it and even though it was only 10:45AM and it opened a 11 there was still a line! Fortunately, the restaurant was quite big (I assume they expanded because they are so popular) and by 11:10AM the entire place was packed and there was still a line outside! It was delicious and on top of ramen I ordered dumplings which made the meal even better.

After lunch, I proceeded to hike to Fukuoka’s parks. While there are buses connecting the parks, I soon found out they weren’t very accurate or reliable at least for tourists. Walking only took half an hour between each park, but it was so hot out I kept finding places to sit in the shade and rest. One of the parks had Fukuoka castle, which I thought would be a castle like Osaka Castle or Kyoto’s Nijo Castle, but instead it was just the remains of the foundation. It did have some beautiful views!

By the end of walking to these parks , I was exhausted and hungry again, so headed to the nearest chain restaurant Saizeriya. Saizeriya is AMAZING because it serves pasta dishes like carbonara but all it’s food is so cheap! Carbonara costs 399 yen, or around 3.50$. After finishing it was around 4PM and he next stop was dinner on Tenjin street, so I had room a three hour nap.

Tenjin street is something unique to Fukuoka. Is it a street along the river lined with food vendors selling admittedly overpriced but delicious dinners. I was warned in advance by my boss to only go to the vendors with a line because the ones without a line may not be good (and I didn’t want to risk it especially since a common food to eat at these vendors is chicken). While I was checking everything out, I couldn’t help but notice I was the only white person there! Normally I wouldn’t have minded, but here people would stop and take photos of me, follow and take videos of me or talk to me and  ask me to come join them at a certain vendor’s stall. I tried my best not to mind and found a vendor that I had even seen reviews about online as being delicious. I ordered yakiramen (fried ramen) which even my coworkers back in Osaka hadn’t heard of, but is famous in Fukuoka and quite yummy (if not a little unhealthy as well). I also ordered the classic chicken skewers everyone recommends eating in Japan. And yes, these chicken skewers has chicken heart again (see one of my earlier blog posts about eating chicken heart for the first time).

After dinner it was close to 10pm! But we still had another full day ahead of us to see the Kawachi Fuji Gardens and canal city.

A two hour train ride brought me to the remote countryside of Japan. Another bus winding through hills and valleys arrived at the Kawachi Fuji Gardens (Fuji is japanese for wisteria flowers). Words can’t do the place justice.

I spent far too long here, because before I knew it I needed to rush back to Fukuoka to catch my flight home! I was able to quickly stop at the canal city before going to the airport. Canal city is this shopping mall with a canal running right through the middle of it.

Fukuoka was so different from Osaka or any of the other cities I have visited so far on the main island. One of the most interesting things is that many places, like the canal city shopping mall or Tenjin street, are designed to be open outside all times of the year. This means that this city never expects it to be too cold to be able to use all their facilities. Fukuoka also had considerably fewer foreigners. I vividly remember being the only one who was not Asian for most of the trip, with the only exception being the Kawachi Fuji Garden. I know I should be used to standing out because I am a tall white woman in Japan who cannot speak Japanese, but in Fukuoka I felt even more aware of how different I was compared to other cities I have been in.

That’s all for now!

For those of you that know me, one of the first descriptors that may come to mind for me is A-type personality. I love, and often need, every aspect of my life to be as organized and well planned out as possible. My planner for school consists of five different colors associated with different projects, as well as weekly and daily objectives ranked in importance. When I travel, I have booked everything a minimum of three months in advance with detailed itineraries, sometimes even down to every half hour full of activities.

Interning in Japan was an A-type person’s nightmare. After being accepted four months prior to my start date, I knew nothing about where I would be living and working, what to see in Japan, how to dress and act, or even if I would get my visa accepted! I tried to research it all online, but there is only so much I could gather. Stressed and nervous, but with classes and finals in full swing, I boxed off all information and feelings regarding my internship until after finals.

Then I only had two weeks left.

Surprising myself (and my family) I successfully made it to Japan and started work without my normal, rigorous A-type planning. It wasn’t easy, and I still had more than my fair share of panic attacks in the first month from anxiety I had nothing planned, but I learned how to let go. Now I’m planning trips sometimes less than three weeks in advance, and even then with little more than a plane/train ticket and accomodation. I go into the week with no idea what to expect work will be like in lab (what experiments will go right or wrong) or what I will see when I travel on the weekend. I am still planning activities for when I get home during the summer, sometimes I wonder if this is my coping mechanism, but overall I have been able to tame my detail oriented A-type personality beast.

Letting go is one of the hardest, but also valuable, skills I have learned while being abroad, from unplanned trips to last minute work dinners to failed experiments. I was expecting coming into this internship to learn new techniques and about a different culture, but never could I have imagined I would also be provided the opportunity to change some of my core habits. It goes to show you that you learn a lot more than you can plan (no matter how much you may try to plan) on a study/internship abroad. I think the next hardest challenge I will face is letting go of this culture I have begun to call a second home which will continue to test my newfound “letting go” ability.

(Before reading, don’t worry about the title; even cheap sushi is good sushi in Japan!)

This weekend was a lot more laid back for me compared to other weekends because I have had so much homework for the internship class I am required to take part in while I intern abroad. Because my weekdays are so long, I have no time to do the bulk of my essay writing but on the weekends. I did have one event planned which was to go to the orchestra to watch one of my coworkers perform! It was in a fancy concert hall in an area of Osaka I had never been to before, but fortunately two other coworkers who were also attending the concert agreed to meet me at the station and we walked together to “Osaka Symphony Hall.) In line waiting to get our set numbers, we just so happened to be standing directly behind the parents and husband of the coworker who was playing in the orchestra! They could not speak English, but they were extremely nice and friendly. After getting our seat numbers, we headed out to find a place for lunch, yet everywhere around the hall was packed with like minded hungry orchestra attendees. Eventually we found an udon restaurant, and quickly ordered the first thing we could because the show started in just 40 minutes. After slurping and gulping down the hot broth and accompanying udon noodles and pork, we hurried to get into our seats before the orchestra began.

The coworker we went to see plays the percussion, and was in charge of 5 different instruments: glockenspiel, triangle, gong, large clap sticks (perhaps Japanese?) and a drum that was taller than my coworker! It was also the 7th anniversary of the 2011 Fukushima Earthquake (if you remember anything about the Japanese nuclear meltdown, that occurred as a result of this tsunami and earthquake) and so the orchestra specifically picked two songs dedicated to remembering the earthquake: one imitating the earthquake and the other about rebuilding.

On my way home, I remember that a woman who lives in my dormitory had invited me and Anna (the other foreign intern at Osaka Gas) to go get sushi with her! I was exhausted, and still had lots more homework for my internship class to complete, but I also had not eaten at a Japanese sushi restaurant yet (pretty much only eating store bought sushi) so I went for it! Only a five minute walk from my dormitory, we arrived at something that can only be described as other worldly.

Our only interaction with another person working at the sushi restaurant (named Kura Sushi) was a host who didn’t even talk to us, just handed us a number card which corresponded to a table among the maze of sushi conveyor belts. We sat down and Anna immediately pulls  dishes off the conveyor belts. She has been to one of these before, but the woman who brought us kindly explained what was going on. I can either pick plates I want from the conveyor belt or order dishes from the touch screen at our table. If I order from the touch screen, my plate will arrive on a different track above the conveyor belt!  We also just stack out plates as we eat, and then count the plates at the end as we place them in a slot at our table for dishes (so there is no table clean up on the part of the restaurant). Better still, everything (except for a couple dishes expressly marked) are only 100 yen each, or $1! I get whatever Anna or the woman from the dormitory suggest, and before I know it I have 5 plates of sushi in front of me.

As the evening progress, I found myself trying all manner of food I would never have tried at home: raw squid,  deep fried squid tentacles, raw octopus tentacle, raw eel, beef and natto (fermented soybean). There was more normal sushi as well such as salmon and mackerel which I also ate. My eyes were bigger than my belly (a problem those close to me know I repeat often) and eight plates in I was stuffed, but I still had four more plates to go in front of me! I had just finished the 12th plate and the woman from the dormitory who brought us asked “dessert?” Even thinking about food was too much for me, so I quickly had to turn down the offer. But Anna said yes, even after already eating 15 plates of sushi. Finally, it was time to head home, so we slotted out dishes into the marked disposal at our table and slowly, slowly walk home.

Now time to do some homework!

Cherry blossom season in Japan is incomparable with anywhere in the world (sorry, that includes you Washington DC) from sheer abundance to endless varieties to traditions of having parks dedicated to cherry blossom trees to hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties) that make the experience even more spectacular. In the full bloom of cherry blossoms in Osaka (around two weeks long) I was invited to four hanami by coworkers! One was hosted by my lab at Osaka Castle Park, another by a coworker who is responsible for all of my logistics before and during my internship who brought a group of us biking around Asuka, a third planned by the female researcher in my lab who invited me and two other female coworkers to Kyoto, and lastly one through the Osaka Mint. Through everything I experienced and heard, there are the best places around Osaka to see the cherry blossoms (in no particular order).

• Osaka Castle
• Osaka Mint
• Arashiyama in Kyoto
• Asuka (Bike riding is preferable)
• Expo 70 Commemorative Park

The first, held in Osaka Castle Park by my lab was probably the most typical hanami experience. In order to get a spot under the trees, the head of my lab left at noon with a big tarp to mark our territory, even when the rest of us wouldn’t arrive until after 7PM! All the women left work together right as the work bell rang to symbolize work was over, while the men all left work early (5PM) to pick up food for the hanami. Me and the other women arrived around 7PM in the most beautiful display of cherry blossom trees illuminated by lights in front of a lit up Osaka Castle.

It felt surreal as we sat down to gaze up at the trees. Right my boss was to come early and get a prime spot because the park was packed. After taking in the beauty of our surroundings for half an hour, the male coworkers arrived arms full of food for a feast!

More and more food kept appearing and I felt rude turning any of it down so I just kept eating. Close to 8:30PM we are just eating sweets and drinking beer so some of us decide to go watch this show a man in the park was putting on which turned out to be a monkey show! I felt bad for the little monkey, but he was so gosh darn cute!

At around 9 we are all back sitting down under the cherry blossom trees when music began to play and the lights illuminating the cherry blossom trees turned off. Slowly, from how full we all were, we plod back to catch the trains Home.

The following Saturday we had an epic bike ride through Asuka. I didn’t have a bike but the coworker who invited me told me not to worry. Almost two hours from my dormitory later, I arrive at Asuka station (I had no idea it would take that long). We quickly rent bikes and another coworker (who seems to be an avid biker because he brought his own bike and was wearing all biking clothes) led the way. Another coworker’s family joined us including three small children between the ages of 2-6. I was worried I would not be able to keep up with the group because I haven’t biked at all since coming here, but having all the children there made everyone go at a nice, slow pace that even I could keep up with.

There were cherry blossoms everywhere. It was an experience I had never expected in Japan because I never knew this was something I could experience! We biked along rolling hills, occasionally stopping at a large rock or mound of dirt that each had its own ancient Japanese story behind it.

Then we reached the end of the route at a lovely park where we sat to eat our packed lunches and gaze up at the cherry blossom trees. Asuka is also famous for strawberries, so the coworker leading the group brought us to a famous ice cream shop known for using fresh strawberries in their mixture. It was “oishi” (delicious).

After, we slowly biked back to the station with full bellies, once in a while stopping just to take in the views.

The next hanami I attended was the one the female researcher in my lab invited me to in Kyoto. We started the morning by meeting in Kyoto station where, from there, we would go to the golden temple (Kinkaji temple). The golden temple is a bus away (which is strange for me because most other places in Kyoto are accessible by train). Once we arrived you could tell exactly why it was named the golden temple! 15kg of gold adorned an otherwise ordinary sized temple.

We next went for a walk along Kamo river populated with endless cherry blossom trees.

Following that, we entered the nearby botanical gardens where not only cherry blossoms were in full blooms but all the other flowers!

Slightly behind schedule, we rushed to a famous ramen restaurant, but we had to wait in line 1.5 hours to be seated! It was worth the wait though, even if we had to quickly slurp up the ramen to dash and catch a taxi.

Why we were behind schedule was because the female researcher in my lab had booked us seats on a famous old fashioned train ride through a beautiful cherry blossom forest on the edge of a river! We made it just in time and then enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

After this train, we headed to the bamboo forest and popular river in Arashiyama near by.

Before all departing, we finished off the day by the river enjoying some crepes and bubble tea served by local vendors

The last hanami I attended was the following weekend and consisted of a fantastic stroll in the Osaka mint! There is quite a line during cherry blossom season, but it is definitely worth it.

All of these hanami were amazing and I honestly can’t rank which was my favorite because they were all so different! I’m so lucky to have coworkers who bring me out to experience aspects of Japanese life I would never have had the opportunity to be a part of is I was a tourist or even studying abroad at a university.

Hiroshima is one of those places everyone wants to go to because of its historical significance in world war 2, little do many foreigners remember there is more to Hiroshima than the atomic bomb. I myself fell into this trap and planned a trip to go to Hiroshima to see the atomic bomb museum and surrounding world peace park. However, when I mentioned to my coworkers that I was going to Hiroshima, they excitedly mentioned that it is also the home to a famous island temple in the water: Miya Jima.

Two and a half hours by Shinkansen from Osaka (and $140 poorer) I arrived in a hot train station just for the start of lunch. Starving (as always) my first stop was to get some Hiroshima style okinomiyaki. Osaka is the originator of Okinomiyaki, so they call Hiroshima okinomiyaki a knock off. Instead of a big mix of cabbage, egg and all the other ingredients you ordered cooked right in front of you, Hiroshima style okinomiyaki is layered and organized including layers of noodles! It was more structured than the normal Osaka okinomiyaki, and because of this I think I liked Osaka okinomiyaki more. However, my family who I travelled there with preferred Hiroshima style.

After the meal, we proceeded to Miya Jima Island, Home of the famous Miya Jima temple standing on water. It didn’t take that long to get there, but other than look at the temple and eat some local treats there wasn’t much to do on the island so after an hour we headed back. It was definitely worth while to see (though surprisingly there weren’t many foreigners there only Japanese tourists) but my coworkers were right when they said it wasn’t worth staying longer than an hour.

The next stop was the more well known Hiroshima atomic bomb museum and surrounding world peace park. As we approached the museum, this out of place metal caged dome emerged from the trees. It was just the backbone of an old building, and so I didn’t understand why so many people were taking pictures of it! Embarrassingly, it was only later at the museum that I found out this building was purposefully left from ground zero after the atomic bomb detonated as a reminder of what happened.

The museum was very well set up with the first half including images of before and after, video statements and written testimonials of victims of the atomic bomb as well as family members if the victims did not survive. It also included articles of the victims such as clothes they were wearing when the bomb dropped (which were essentially tatters). Every story made me feel more hollow, and at the end of this section of the museum if people were not crying they were aimlessly staring at the floor or wall from numbness. The second half of the museum, however, ended on a positive note on how we can prevent future atomic bombs and nuclear weapons. Since the atomic bomb, Hiroshima has made a stand against any nuclear weapon making and regularly hold sit in protests (some including the prime minister) when a country announces it plans to make or use nuclear weapons.

After the museum, stepping out into the beautiful World Peace Park was a warmness I needed to lift my spirits slightly. I was surprised how many foreigners there were in this area, especially since there were close to none at Miya Jima, but it made me happy that so many people are taking an interest in the events that happened in Hiroshima so that global awareness is raised against the use of nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima is beautiful and blew my expectations away. It is quite far away (and quite expensive to get to) but it is a must see even if you are in Japan for a short time.