21 May 2010
Day 6: Homerun
Posted by Roland under: Travel .
Alarm off but I would still wake up earlier than Tom and make it down for breakfast before he did. Today’s plan? Go to Fukuoka and enjoy Hakata ramen, the beautiful women of Fukuoka (labeled as “Hakata Bijin” or “Hakata Beauties” by the Japanese) and a baseball game featuring my favorite Japanese baseball team, the Hiroshima Carp. Despite just missing a train to Fukuoka by one minute, we would occupy ourselves with a bookstore near the station for about an hour before we could get on a train headed to Fukuoka.
We would arrive in Fukuoka just in time for lunch, so we headed right to Tenjin (a famous shopping district in Fukuoka) and right to a Lonely Planet recommended ramen place. The place was quite intense, featuring a taiko motif as their theme with intense taiko music playing the background and a rushed feeling to service as they tried to get people in and out of the place as quick as possible. However, that didn’t take away from their fantastic ramen, making the trip out to Fukuoka for tasty ramen a great success.
Me and Tom would wander the Tenjin area for a bit (I would finally get a packet of tissues that I needed) before going backwards on the subway a few stops to visit the largest wooden Buddha in Japan. It lived up to billing (although I do remember seeing it 4 years before in my other visit). From then we went to Canal City, a popular shopping mall near the water (obviously) where we would play a game of Taiko no Tatsujin (the taiko drumming arcade game) and lose several yen at a claw game. We also flirted with the idea of buying another round of ramen, but held off as we had only eaten several hours before (we were eager to eat as much Hakata ramen as we could).
We then headed for Yahoo! Dome, home of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and the home team that would host the visiting Hiroshima Carp. I had watched the Carp play previously in Hiroshima and would’ve loved to see them in their new home stadium but they were playing an away series, luckily of all places, Fukuoka. It was meant to be. Ramen and the Hiroshima Carp. Getting tickets was a relatively easy process and I was impressed as we got into the stadium. It was my first time seeing a game in a domed stadium and it was quite a sight.
We sat with the Carp supporters so we were heavily involved in all the chants and cheering that went on throughout the game, my favorite part of Japanese baseball. From there we were treated an excellent showing by the Carp team. The Carp kept batting in the runs, bringing the Hiroshima crowd into a frenzy and the namesake on the jersey I wore actually hit a homerun on that night, a rarity considering his skills were declining as he is now 39 years old. They would win 7-1 and the Carp pitcher pitched a complete game, a shutout going in all the way till he was 2 outs away from it in the 9th. It made the trip well worth it to the stadium.
Unfortunately, our game ending time was a bit close to the last train from Fukuoka to HIroshima so we rushed a bit from the stadium to the subway. Once on the subway we were okay on timing and got on our bullet train to Hiroshima, although we did not get back into town until 11:30, whereupon, for lack of anything else to eat, we went back to the same okonomiyaki place yet again, making it three nights in a row we went to the same place. The owner was again happy to serve us and actually had the game we just watched in Fukuoka replaying on the TV. We would be pleased to learn that me and Tom made it on as Japanese TV, albeit as a speck in a large crowd shot of the Hiroshima fans. We said our last goodbyes to the owner (we were leaving tomorrow for Tokyo) so he gave us a few farewell gifts, Tom got some Gundam figurines and I got a few Hiroshima Carp baseball cards.
It was really late by the time we got back to the hotel, around 12:30, but we had a very full and complete day in Fukuoka which we truly enjoyed.