The Japan Adventures, Part 5: Fukuoka Temple Time

Originally, our plan had been to spend Saturday afternoon at the monkey park, and then spend Sunday morning hunting for Shidaka's Utopia - an abandoned amusement park in the Beppu area. Unfortunately, between delays and rain, we had to forego the hunt for Shidaka's Utopia. It was lunchtime by the time we returned to Beppu from monkey mountain, and the weather was still pretty nasty. We decided to return to Fukuoka a little earlier than planned, in hopes that the weather might be better there.

We lucked out. The skies were rather hazy and dreary in Fukuoka, but at least it was dry. We checked in to our hostel, the rather awesome Khaosan Fukuoka, then set out on a tour of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in the Hakata district. I can't tell you much information about these temples (all the available information was in Japanese...) but they were pretty fabulous to look at, explore, and photograph.

Zen Buddhist sand garden

Shinto Shrine - unfortunately it had closed for the day just minutes before we arrived, and this was the closest I could get. See the cat in the tree? :-)