Dazaifu has one of the famous shrines in Japan. A God of Study is there. Many Japanese students take entrance exams from December to March. They come here and pray to the god for passing the exams.
This place is also well-known with plum trees and February is the best season to watch them. you can enjoy watching this trees everywhere in this shrine. You also enjoy a sweet shaping the flower of the tree together with a cup of green tea.

We met kindergarden children turing this shirine ares like us. Thery were very lively and friendly.

There is a historical museum with a modern designed building next to this shrine. You are able to find information from the ancient time.

We had an excursion to Nagasaki by train.　Nagasaki is famous for the Chinatown next to Yokohama. You can go to this city from Fukuoka i the short period of time.
It was a new year time in Chinese calender and they had a lanturn festival when we visited Chinatown.

The town was well-decorated, but it was not so lively because there was not light in lanturns. However, we enjoyed Chinese food there waiting for the night drawing in. Then, we are all amazed by the lights.

One of our students gave us a comment of this trip.
“Nagasaki was an interesting place and I was told one of the first few places in Japan to allow foreigners to come by which was interesting to see.”

We went a house called ‘Yusentei’ with a traditional Japanese garden.
Our student enjoyed the old Japanese house with a room with a kind of display called ‘Tokono-ma’. You can see a pond, greens, and some stones and stone products created in traditional way. Japanese gardens are aimed at a small sized nature, so they try to put trees, plants, stones, ponds, moss, etc. as much as the real nature inside their lands.

Our student also enjoyed feeding Koi carps at the pond and experience tea drinking in formal (traditional) way which is quite different from the normal (present) way. The student said, “Yusentei park was amazing lovely scenery and experiencing traditional Japanese culture with macha tea and sweets.” after we came back.

We visited one of the craft museums in Fukuoka.

You can experience making Japanese traditional paper called, ‘Wa-shi’. ‘Wa’ means Japanese and ‘shi’ is a sheet of paper. In this museum, you can choose different kinds of product with wa-shi. Our student chose a Japnese style fan. The instructor kindly taught how to make it and she achieved to make her own cute fun!

You can see some other Japanese traditional products such as a female cloths, a miniature of Samurai Armor (displayed a Boy’s day), and a display of a Girl’s day.

We have an annuary event on 3 February. It is called ‘Setsubun’ meaning the day of season change. It is traditionaly the day of the season changing from winter to spring although it is still cold in this time of the year. Japanese people join this event by throwing beans toward ‘Oni,’ which means devil, with saying, “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!!” The word ‘Fuku’ means the happiness. ‘Soto’ and ‘uchi’ are outside and insaide. So they say “Devil out, happiness in!!” The person with the devil mask has to get out of the house, classroom, or inside of a building.

One of our students gave us a comment of this event;

I found the trip to be very interesting and very insightful to Japanese culture. The throwing of the beans and festival brings back a child’s and parent tradition that has been celebrated every year. Watching the elder and younger generation forms a picture and scenery that brings everyone together because of past memories and new one being form at the festival. It brings a sense of family to the Japanese community and spiritual scene.

One of the students gave us the impression of our excursion. It shows that Yanagawa is a must-go place in Fukuoka!

We went to Yanagawa. It took us more than an hour to reach Yanagawa station. I was pretty excited about this trip, as I knew there will be a boat ride. And again, it is in the winter.

After we arrived at the Yanagawa station, we were ferried to the Shogetsu Punting Station via shuttle bus for the boat ride. Though it was not crowded, but I was surprised that there were people like us going for the boat ride in the winter.

The weather was good, sunny and bright at Yanagawa. I was lucky, as it was drizzling in the morning when I left home.

Upon arrival at the Punting Station, we waited for the boats to be ready, and we were required to remove our shoes before we board the boat. As it was winter, the boats were equipped with “kotatsu”, so that we were able to warm ourselves during the boat ride.

As the boat slowly went downstream, we could see the beautiful reflection of the willow trees along the river bank. There were cherry and peach blossom trees, but due to winter, we were not able to see the flowers blooming scenery.

The boatman operated the boat skillfully and explained the history of Yanagawa during the ride. He even sung us songs when passing through the low bridges.

When we were done with the boat ride, we went for our lunch, Seiro-steamed unagi. It was really tasty. I got some unagi ramen and motsugorou ramen as these flavours seemed interesting….

We ended our activity after touring around the area.

Beautiful scenery, delicious unagi, interesting experience on boat with “kotatsu”.
A good memorable and unique trip.

V.

We are planning this kind of exciting excursions in the future so that our students can have new experiences.

Here is a comment from one of our students who took part in Conpeto event.

I would like to express my impression about Conpeto. There was very interesting and useful experience which offered me to learn about Candy history and making process. On the other hand, the staff provided the exciting program throughout various interactive method. The most important thing is that positive environment gave me fabulous feeling and creation. I would say, this kind of activity will help students shaping their new life in Japan society and socialising easily.

We are keeping an activity day in a week so that our students can have experiences of not only Japanese language but also Japanese culture and customs throughtout the events.

Yame Traditional Craftwork Center

We went to the workshop where we could see how the handmade Yame Washi (Traditional Japanese Paper) was done. And we also had the opportunity to hands on ourselves on the paper making process. It was an unusual experience for us.

We were allowed to choose what kind of items to make into, such as a fan (うちわ), or post cards (はがき), or book marks (しおり), or message cards (めいし), or message slips (たんざく). I chose to make into book marks.

We were given a selection of dry flowers and dry leaves to design and decorate our book marks. After we were done, we handed over to the staff to assist in pressing and drying.

While waiting, we proceeded to take a look at the Buddhist alters (仏壇/ぶつだん), bamboo work (竹細工/たけざいく), traditional craftwork (民族工芸品/みんぞくこうげいひん), etc…

I saw the extremely huge lanterns (Yame Chochin八女提灯) and Buddhist alters…. Wow….
We also saw the stage of Yame Fukushima’s lantern puppets, and was told that 6 persons are required in order to operate a doll!!! No wonder the stage is so huge…. and the stage does not require any nails or bolts or nuts to assemble, basically they are making use of the slots to assemble the stage. Amazing.

As it was almost time, we went back to the workshop to collect our book marks, and headed to shop for some おみやげ，and not forgetting the soft cream to finish off the activity. Yummy….

Fukuoka Tower and Robo-Square

After our test on 16th Dec. 2015, we went to Fukuoka Tower. It was a freezing cold day and poor Sensei had to help us to take photos in the strong wind…  Thank you Sensei…

@Fukuoka City

After the photo taking, we entered the Japan’s tallest seaside tower, Fukuoka Tower.

Fukuoka Tower is 234 meters tall, it’s underground foundation weighs 25,000 tons but the portion of the tower above ground weighs only 3,500 tons. Fukuoka Tower is often referred to as “Mirror Sail” as it is made with 8,000 one-way mirrors, the triangle tower resembles a sail of glimmering mirrors.

Mr. Fuhta is Fukuoka Tower’s mascot. 可愛いね (Cute!).

While the elevator was moving up to the observation deck, I spotted some Christmas decoration on the structure of the tower. Before we realized, we had reached the observation deck, which is 123 meters above ground.

We walked around, enjoying the amazing panoramic view of Fukuoka’s cityscape, Hakata Bay, Muromi River, etc. 綺麗ですね (Beautiful).

I saw the “Omikuji”, and had a try on it, and to my surprise, I got a “Best Luck”, Wooohooo…..‼️

We also took some amusing 3D photos,  before we proceeded to the next destination, RoboSquare.

RoboSquare was established on 20th July 2002. RoboSquare focuses on increasing familiarity and awareness with robots, being an educational facility for learning robots and also production of robots. There were robots on display and we were able to touch and communicate with them.

We saw Kitty chan at the entrance, and we were able to communicate with her, it was amusing. We saw a cute baby harp seal, named Paro, it was designed to have a calming effect on and elicit emotional responses in patients of hospitals and nursing homes.

Paro responded when you touched its fur and whiskers, it was amazing and impressive.

Before we ended our activity, We took a few photos with Paro and reluctantly said goodbye to Paro.

A rare experience for me to view nice scenery high up in Fukuoka Tower and a warm and close contact with Paro on a cold day…. 寒かったね (It was cold…).