Day 1:  12 Oct 2006

The day when I would board a plane once again to Japan has come!

In order to avoid rushing down to go home and get ready for the flight, I took half day leave from work.

Although I had planned to rest for the remaining half of the day (I am one who cannot fall asleep on fllights, especially night flights),

I spent my time packing my luggage getting ready for the trip.

When I reached the airport and entered the immigration area, I met with some  trouble.

I was a bit inconvenienced by the passport checking as the custom officers took my passport to do self scanning.

This is a new self-passport check-in for ‘new’ passports where we scanned our passport, go past a gantry and

then scan our fingerprint in order to go through another gantry.

Apparently, my ‘new’ passport belongs to the 1^st generation hence there was some trouble accessing

my data. I was sandwiched in between the 2 barricade after my fingerprint scanning failed!

Traumatised! After the ‘ordeal’, I went to the gate to wait to board the plane.

The air bus that took me from Singapore to the new Bangkok airport (pronounced as su wa na phoom airport) was generally

OK although I don’t know why I suffered from toothache (right side of face) and headache (right side) consecutively while on board!

The Panadol Extra that I ate got rid of the toothache but brought on the headache.

What a way to start my holiday.

Anyway I managed to finish my dinner on the flight to Bangkok, despite my toothache.

 I could not sleep on the flight to Fukuoka so I arrived  tired and hence a bit light headed from lack of sleep.

Somehow, Fukuoka was a bit warm even though the weather forecast said otherwise. What a let down.

The rays from the sun was quite strong and sunny. Somehow it was even more sunny than Singapore!!!

Because of this warm weather, the leaves in Kyushu were slow to turn orange/red!

I am pretty upset that I was not able to see a forest of orange/red leaves.

 And I thought that Seoul, with a slightly lower temperature, would enable me to

view the splendid autumn foliage. No...it was more warm than Fukuoka.

 In fact, other than mornings and some evening, a light material long sleeve shirt will do just fine.

On some days,  wearing a T-shirt with or without a light cardigan will be sufficient.

Day 2:  13 Oct 2006

When I reached the airport on 13 Oct (Fri) morning, I made my way to HOTEL FLORAL INN, NISHINAKASU quite easily.

The location is within walking distance to Tenjin and Canal City. Quite a nice place.

The view from my hotel room

Day time:

Night time:

I deviated from my initial plan of going to NOKONOSHIMA island (能古島) and went to shop around tenjin (天神) instead.

It is a very famous shopping area within the vicinity of Nishitetsu Fukuoka (Tenjin) station.

I had to cross nishi oohashi (西大橋) to access the nearest subway station from the hotel.

The subway station is called nakasukawabata-eki (中州川端) .

Within the vicinity of Hotel Floral Inn

I did quite a lot of shopping in the morning and was very tired.

When I took a rest sitting around tenjin, I was pretty surprised that the time was only 1.30 PM!

Oh dear! I had by then already bought many stuff and the load I was carrying was pretty heavy.

So I sat at a bench and rested my feet and shoulder for half an hour.

In front of me was the lunch crowd waiting to fill their stomach with food and also a movie theatre.

The movie nadasousou (涙そうそう) seem to be screened in that movie theatre.

I've never tried watching a movie in Japan for the one reason that the movie ticket is expensive.

Even the cheapest costs 1,000 yen which is around S$14 at this moment! Isn't that expensive?!?

My evening was spent at Marinoa City which was also accessible by subway. It is supposedly a huge shopping mall

made of several complexes & ferris wheel. However, I found the place a bit quiet despite it being a Friday evening.

The ferris wheel rides didn't seem to be popular and they were almost empty...

Bought a few souvenir from the Marinoa City, had an ice-cream crepe for dinner (no appetite) before I made my way back to the hotel.

Total damage to my wallet for the day:  9,000 over yen during my 1st day in Fukuoka.　がんばります！

Bought this subway day pass (600 yen) and made use of it the whole day.

It saved me a lot of money!

DAY 3