Well, that’s it for Japan. We’ve spent 23 days seeing some remarkable things, and trying to make sense of some unfathomable mysteries, and it’s been a fun time.
We had a relaxed check out this morning after our last breakfast of coffee and toast in the ‘shopping street’, and then we walked down to the station in the sunshine after leaving our clear umbrella in the Airbnb for the next guest to use. A bite to eat at the station, then on to our last bullet train to Hakata, which is only one station away from the Fukuoka airport.
Arrived in Hakata early afternoon and had a lot of time to spare before our evening flight, so we walked around the nearby neighbourhoods of Hakata exploring some temples and gardens in the sunshine.
So, before we hop on our plane out of here, let me tell you about the last two interesting things I can think of. Firstly, car parking. There are lots of cars in Japan, and most of them are very small, with good reason. However, the thing we’ve noticed is that they have lots of buildings to house parked cars that are serviced by car lifts. So you drive your car into the building and hand the keys to the attendant who then presses the button for the lift, drives your car into the lift and ascends to a level where there is a spare bay. They aren’t necessarily floors like you would expect in a car park in Australia, more like bike racks where one is stacked on top of the other, raised up with huge hydraulic lifts.
I’m guessing when you come to retrieve your car and hand the attendant your ticket, he may have to move three or four cars underneath yours to allow the lift to bring yours down to the ground level so you can depart. Certainly not something that they would let Aunty Akiko reverse park into at her own leisure.
The other unfathomable thing is Japanese women’s fashion. One would be hard-pressed to say that Japanese women are dressed fashionably. Most of them look like they’re wearing a sack. Their dresses are usually formless, baggy and fall to just above the ankles. If you are wearing slacks, the two legs will be very shapeless, baggy, and fall to just above the ankles. We came across an ad for Japanese fashion week and, from the look of the photos, this year‘s fashion is more sack-like and formless than it currently is, but just using lots of canary yellow fabric. Hardly going to set the runways of Paris into a spin.
I presume that it’s an expression of modesty but really there are lots of options for preserving modesty that actually enhance your appearance. I can only guess that’s why many of the younger Japanese girls rebel against the dress code and go out dressed in ridiculously high heels, fur gators, strange capes, fishnet stockings, and anything else that they can think of which is not drab, baggy and shapeless.
Took the subway out to the Fukuoka airport’s domestic terminal, and rode the shuttle bus around to International.
Had dinner at an airport cafe (in fact the only airport cafe as most of the terminal was closed off for renovations), then conducted a comedy routine as we ran in and out of 7-11 with our cards and cash buying things, then working out what money we had left.
The airport toilets had two options. One was the squat over the hole option, and the other was the sit on a heated seat with an optional spray option. Now there’s a contrast for you.
No particular online check in bag drop queue which was disappointing, so we snaked our way around with everybody else to lose our bags, then a pretty perfunctory security check, and a quick immigration self serve booth saw us at our gate waiting for our delayed flight.
A fairly uneventful China airlines flight on an Airbus A330. Even served a full meal at 9:30pm after we finally took off about an hour late.
Through Taiwanese formalities without any hassle. Finding our Uber in the melee as it pulled up was challenging, but we finally got to our Taipei accommodation at 12:30am before falling into bed.
Shinkansen to Hakata
Kofukoji Temple, Nagasaki
Tochoji Temple , Hakata
Taipei Airbnb