Hi Everyone,
We have been to Japan many times but have never been to Fukuoka and its surroundings. This was the first time we decided to travel down south of Japan to get away from the cold. Hakata was our first stop and we decided to stay here for longer to explore the city. We like to go around to different streets, corners, and markets just to make sure we try the local things. One of the things we noticed in Hataka is the city is not as busy as Tokyo or Osaka. It's like Kyoto with fewer temples and shrines. We also found the streets are much older and dirtier (though it's not really dirty if you know what I mean) and a part of me feels like we are not in Japan.
The reason is it is super close to South Korea so nearly everyone we walked past spoke Korean. No joke. We were in a Sanrio store, apart from the shop assistant and myself, everyone in there was from South Korea. We did a bit of research and really, you could take a ferry and visit Busan in a few hours. We did think about going to Busan for a few days but with the kids with us, it will be too rushed to go there for a few days. Maybe next trip when they are a little older.
Being south of the country, the weather seemed a little warmer though we still wore our big jackets. Lots of people here just wore a jumper and that was enough. The night life here definitely wasn't as 'fun' as Osaka or Tokyo, but if you look around, there is always something available. Another thing to note, there are fewer gaming arcades available compared to the other bigger cities so the kids had no choice but to go back to the hotel when we finished dinner.
A cool thing we did see was around the canal, there would be food stores set up on the side. Due to the COVID situation earlier this year, we decided not to eat at one of these places as we found that everyone would sit so close together side by side so we didn't want to risk it.
Walking around Hakata by night felt safe though there was a stabbing incident a few weeks later which shocked the country and we were literally 100m away from it at the same time. Had we not listened to BB E's suggestion to check out some Pokemon T-shirts from Uniqlo, we would have walked to the same place where the incident happened as it was the only way back to our hotel from the station. Japan's crime rate is very low and to have a serious incident like that where someone has actually past away is a very rare event.
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