Hummingbird Chuo Inn Fukuoka

Here we go again, off to lands unknown (to us, anyway) with our lives stuffed into luggage. The last time we do this will not be too soon! I suppose it's the price of an adventurous lifestyle. <br><br>Speaking of which, we are currently in Nogata, Fukuoka which is probably the *least* adventurous town ever. It consists of rice fields and... rice fields. My grandparents live here though, and it's also where we ...

... telephone. Ten years ago this was hi-tech, state of the art stuff.<br><br>Built one year later, TMSUK-04 is a humanoid super-remote-controlled robot with a head, arms, and tracks. She sorta reminded me of Dot Matrix from the movie Spaceballs, but without legs.<br><br>I checked out some other display robots, including BANRYU, and Wall-E, then finally actually went inside the "square"...<br><br>-----<br>ROBOSQUARE FACILITY:<br><br>A group of young Japanese women were excitedly ...

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

KARATSU<br><br>There is next to nothing in Saga, but it's a convenient rail connection to the pottery towns I want to visit. There is also a recently-built Comfort Hotel right next to the train station, and the rooms are very pleasant and an excellent value. I took the train from Saga to Karatsu and back this afternoon. Karatsu is an old town with a long tradition of making rough, non-symmetrical pottery, some of which looks like it was ...

... and experience was worth it!<br><br>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!!

... bit there but was not feeling like I was going to accomplish talking to any Japanese girls. I left that bar/club and headed off to a club called Mars at about 2am. This is about the time when the real nightlife start in Japan, or at least this city. This club was about half females and half males, all Japanese. By this time I had met two Russian guys that decided to tag along to this place with me. We decided to hit ...

... led me to some interesting sights. I was impressed at how clean a city of 1.5 million people could be.....it was as if a cleaning crew was working just ahead of me as I turned each corner. Two things struck me in comparison of Japan and Korea.....they both had to do with cars. First, I don't recall ever hearing anyone use their horn! In Korea, the horns are loud and constant.....Second, I was walking with a girl I met from Texas who also teaches in Korea. We ...

... Imagine`. Probably not the worst version you`ll hear but not far off either :). When we left the bar we had got a bit confused by the fact that there were no windows in the bar and it was on the second floor so when leaving we look a left instead of a right. We were all sure we were going towards the hostel until we found ourselves at the docks. From there we could have gotten a fast ferry to Korea but since we didn`t have our pasports we decided to get a taxi back to ...

... and a bit wet, we settled in at a bar that we had already passed twice. It had good food and we had a good time. We couldn't read much on the menu and in the end just pointed to random food. This turned out to be a good deal, and I got to try quail eggs wrapped in bacon and fried. They were quite tasty, like rich and soft hardboiled eggs. The natives laughed at us for ordering a very light alcoholic drink mixed with coca-cola that was a 'girly drink', so to reaffirm my manhood I took the ...

... the third room is the shower and bath facility. Japanese take their baths after a long days work every day at night. The wife or mother prepares a bath with some herbal smells, and then in order of age and I think also that men have priority over women, the family members first take a shower and soap themselves, and then once done with the shower, ie. when they are clean, they dip into the bath tup for a nice and long soak in the hot ...