Day 14 – Only one abalone was harmed in the making of this blog post.

Before we get into anything else about this day – our first full day in Fukuoka – let me make one thing clear. It was wet. It rained non-stop all day. And I’m not talking about your half hearted namby pamby Hobart drizzle. I’m talking about proper bucketing down rain – all day. OK that’s the context sorted.

We got going late, delayed by tedious things like washing and looking in horror at our dwindling bank balance. No idea how that happened. Anyway, eventually we headed out into the deluge and made it to Blue Bottle Coffee (another branch of the excellent cafe we went to in Tokyo) for coffees (obviously) and a cheeky bikkie.

Then we subwayed it across town. Because it was so wet, the plan was to head over to a few shopping malls – one from the 1950s called Kawabata shopping arcade and the other a massive new behemoth called Canal City. Both are allegedly tourist attractions but to be honest they were both duds. Canal city was being extensively renovated and Kawabata was just… well… old and sad. The only saving grace was a delicious Ramen Noodle lunch at Canal City (Fukuoka is supposedly the birthplace of ramen – although the Chinese might dispute that). The top floor of Canal City is taken up by about a dozen separate ramen shops – collectively and hilariously it’s called Ramen Stadium. The crowd went wild.

After a break back at the AirBnB to dry off. We braved the torrential rain once more in search of dinner. And if some random record shopping happened along the way then so be it. We set our sights on a place that supposedly does some of Fukuoka’s best sushi called Hyotan Sushi. No bookings, queue up (in the rain) and wait until a space comes up. We did all that and ended up seated on the tatami floor in the trad Japanese style (there was no room at the sushi bar). By the time we got in, they were getting near closing time so we order in a rush without completely understanding what we were ordering. Which ended up fine actually – two platters of incredible fresh sushi. The only issue was that my platter had a piece of abalone (or some other unusual type of shellfish) sushi on it. I’m from Hobart so usually I’m fine with abalone etc – but when they served it, one of the dudes told me to squeeze some lemon on it. I did as I was told and was horrified to see it writhe and contort. It was still alive. Gulp. My middle class Anglo white boy sensitivities were challenged. I was faced with a conundrum. Did I eat it like a local or tuck it away under my chopstick wrapper and hope nobody would notice ? In the end I’m embarrassed to say I did both. With Jules urging me on I gave it a bit of a chomp. The texture was very firm and rubbery. That was enough for me. Out it came to be tucked away discreetly on my otherwise empty platter.

And with that we slunk off into the rain and home to our little apartment for a calming reassuringly familiar cup of chamomile tea.

A little homemade brekky in the world’s tiniest kitchen.

Blue Bottle Coffee Fukuoka. A spacious oasis of calm (with outstanding coffee) – nice and dry as well.

Coffee porn.

At our local subway station Tenjin-Minami. About thirty seconds earlier it was packed. Everyone got on the train except us. That’s OK we’re on holidays.