Hakata Terminal Hotel Fukuoka

My first impression of Fukuoka was neon. Though my body knew it was the middle of the night it was used to, I was able to get yen from an ATM, buy a subway ticket, and get to the 100 year old inn where I had reservations. Enjoyed the hot communal (gender separated) bath, but not as much the ********** and buckwheat pillow.
Fukuoka, Kyushu-Okinawa, Japan travlingal

... 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 ...

... br>
As I reached the top of the escalator, the place came into view. Robots ahead!...

-----
ROBOSQUARE ENTRANCE:

Ceiling-length glass displays housed vintage robots. I went right for TMSUK-03 and TMSUK-04 (pronounced, "TIM-SUCK" - insert childish joke here:)

Built in 1998, TMSUK-03 is a short little guy with a big head, two arms with grippers, and two tractor treads for locomotion. It was the world’s first experiment robot controlled remotely by ...

... it's suffered from decline from its glory days as a cruise ship port, and there has been a major investment in public improvements. It probably needs a few factory outlet stores to fill up some of the remaining vacant old buildings. But even as-is, this is a community that deserves a visit!

I did not have time to visit Cha Cha Town, a shopping center in Kokura, another community that's part of Kitakyushu ...

... the other stuff was!! But glad we did as it was the best noodle soup we have had all trip. Then we decided to be brave and order some other little bits - Rob ordered some chicken skewers, which although this is what it was, we had no idea what part of the chicken it was from as it was hard and crunchy!!!! Lesley then pointed at a few things that could not be identified but thought it might be ...

... de una nube de hombres esperando su turno para cargarlas. El publico y los hombres a la espera van echando agua a los "cargadores" para irlos refrescando.
La calor a las 5am ya era insoportable. Nosotras estabamos entre el publico, que se habia agolpado al frente para ver las carrozas pasar. Mucha gente estaban bebiendo cerveza, probablemente continuando la fiesta de la noche anterior.
Cuando termino, volvimos al hostal a dormir, hasta las diez, que teniamos ...

... At 10h20 I started to climb. It was very, very busy with hundreds, maybe thousands of people coming down Mount Fuji (having been there to hope to see the sunrise), and only a few people going up. On the way there were the stations (6th, 7th, et cetera) where I stopped only twice: one for a toilet break and to change into some warmer clothes and once because the rain was just too hard. After that last stop the rain subsided a little bit, but there were small mud ...

... the desire not to spend all our precious Yen in one place, we made the decision to find another bar. Alas, in a cruel twist of fate, we ended up in an "American" jazz bar that served only whiskey and beer. So, whiskey and beer it was. The bartender, Kenji, was really great and spoke English fairly well. When he found out we were Canadian, he decided to honour us by putting on an Ann Murray record, for which we politely thanked him and pretended to enjoy very much. Anyway ...

... found them to be about equal size. That would make the bee about two inches long, a true goliath of its kind. It took my examination stoically and was still munching away when we left it behind. The park we came to was very nice. It was composed of a wooded area surrounding a lake with a series of bridged islands running through its center. The lake was filled with large coy fish and it was a nice walk. There were a lot of Japanese joggers around the lake, as well as some bikers and a ...

The Tenjin area, which is one of the two downtown areas of Fukuoka, is amazing. There is the main bus and main commuter train station. In the vicinity of this station, there is a non-smoking zone. I am not talking about only the station area. I am talking about a zone which is about 1 mile wide and 500 m long, and which also includes the station, and hundreds of shops and restaurants. If anyone smokes in this ...