Hakata Dai-ichi Hotel Fukuoka

... The next morning I wandered the side streets and lanes, and found myself at Yusida Shrine, welcomed by a Nandi on the left (later learned there is also a sacred cow/patron god in Shinto)

Then to the blast of the main streets, and ticket on to Yufuin. (I fly out of FUK, so will explore more of the city when I return).

... all the stuff we didn't carry in backpacks for the last 8 months so here we are, unpacking and repacking boxes, and shifting our necessary items to suitcases to bring with us to Oman... which is, tomorrow! Yep, our flights have been booked and tomorrow we leave Japan to fly all the way to Muscat, where we're staying for a couple days until we do the short jump to Salalah our new home.

What is ...

... room checking out more robots, including ROBOVIE (a humanoid robot), Miuro (a wheeled robot iPod dock to follow you around... really!), SR-01 (a shallow, tractor treaded surveillance robot), PLEO (an AI baby dinosaur), and last, but not least, Paro (a therapuetic robot).

Finally, I perused the retail toy section. - LOTS of fun stuff there!:) Some highlights were the "2-LEGGED WALKING ROBOT," the "RESCUE CRAWLER" articulated tank-track robot, the "SOLAEMON-GO" solar-powered ...

... will have to wait for my next trip!

What better way to finish off my retro day than to stay at the Comfort Hotel in Hakata. The carpet in the rooms has a pattern that could be Polynesian art, a Rohrshoch ((?)) test, or an artifact from a well-preserved 1950's American living room. It's located across the street from the Hakata railroad station. Compared to the other hotels where I've stayed in Japan, this ...

... and experience was worth it!

The next day we boarded the Beetle - a high speed Jet Foil Boat which lifts out of the water and skims on ski-like foils. It took less than 3 hours to do 120 miles across the sea to South Korea which is pretty quick. It felt like you were on a place or a train but was even smoother, so no sea sickness, even after having an early morning beer - well, it was free!!

... their geography and their language.
They developed complex social skills with many moral obligations both from their isolation and the influence of Confucianism.

The best thing I discovered about Japanese: their profound sense of service. If you ask them about finding a specific store for example they will not let you down until they help you figure out where it is. Even if it involves speaking on the phone with 3 different people.

... to Miyajimaguchi. From here it was a short ferry ride to the island of Miyajima. This island is famous for the very photogenic "floating torii" (a torii is a Japanese gate to a shrine), one of the few pictures of Japan that I knew of before coming to Japan. After a few hours here I returned to Hiroshima, where I spent the night. In Hiroshima I visited of course the atomic bomb related sites as well. Because it was of one of the biggest national holidays, called O-Bon ...

... before. First of all, you enter in the back and leave through the front. As you come on, rather than paying, you simply take a ticket that has a zone number on it. The idea is that you pay based on distance traveled ( there is an electronic price list for each zone which steadily rises). Therefore, one pays when one leaves. Also, there is a change machine on board, which makes things very convenient. Although, I have to say, it was very confusing at first. I walked up ...

... s what you've got to figure out." I wondered what my one thing was. What was I devoted to, if I wasn't devoted to my pursuit of a history doctorate? The things that came to mind were not professions, and therefore not sustaining. After I got ready Josh and I hailed a taxi and headed over to the Korean consulate, where Josh was going to his get his visa problem taken care of. On the ride he asked me what I thought of Japan. I said that I felt more comfortable there than in Korea. I knew ...

... thinking that exists here, and noone really cares about it, within a family. But for strangers to a family, it is considered very polite, if food from the central dishes, is taken with the back end of the chop sticks, i.e. the part which was not used for eating, and has not entered my mouth yet. Using the back end of the chop sticks, which are much thicker, require a considerable amount of skill, as it is very difficult to hold ...