Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine is the most famous shrine around the area.  Many students visit here to pray for their success in entrance exams for schools.  Our students learned the traditional way to worship at a shrine.

Sensei gave an introduction of Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, it’s history, legend of Sugawara Michizane, how to worship at a shrine, etc… before the trip.

We set off for Dazaifu after the briefing.
As it was raining, our hands were occupied with umbrellas…, hence, I am not able to take photos this round… however, Sensei managed to take a few for me…

It was interesting to go through the proper way to worship at a shrine. We washed our hands and rinsed our mouths at the washbasin, before proceeding to the hall of worship. I am lucky to have a 5 yen with me. I threw the coin into the offertory box, but not able to ring the bell as there was no bell, with 2 bows, 2 handclaps, pray, and another bow.

We walked around for a while, and proceeded to Kyushu National Museum as it was raining.

We spent some time at the Cultural Exchange Exhibition on the cultural history of Japan and Asian countries, then, we headed to Kasa-no-ya for the Dazaifu’s specialty – Umegae Rice Cake and Matcha green tea.
The Umegae Rice Cake was yummy, and it was served hot, the outer layer was baked until golden brown and the inner was filled with Azuki bean paste.

We strolled along the street which led us to the train station and ended our trip.

Although it was raining throughout the trip, but overall, it was still an enjoyable and pleasant trip.

NILS students enjoyed making their own Kompeito (金平糖), which is a mall colored sugar candy covered in bulges and it is said that it was  introduced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century to Japan.  Here is the comment from one of our students.

We visited “Kompeito Kingdom” to understand the history and origins of the famous Japanese sugar candy – Kompeito introduced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.

We were welcomed by the staffs upon arrival and it started of with the introduction of Kompeito, types of sugar used, sizes of Kompeito, colours, the making processes….etc.

Then, we were leaded to the Kompeito Museum, where it showcased many portraits which were made of sugar, and different kinds and colours of Kompeito and the equipment used.

The staff verbally explained the processes, and asked us to choose 1 colour and 1 flavour for our Kompeito. We chose purple colour and melon flavour….shouldn’t the flavour be grapes…
Anyway, interesting!
We were given the opportunity to hands on the last few processes, such as colouring and adding flavour to our Kompeito.

While waiting for our Kompeito to be ready, the staff introduced another confectionery called Karume Yaki, foam candy from heated brown sugar mixed with baking soda. She demostrated the making of Karume Yaki, and we were astonished when we saw it raised and harden from the pot…
We cutted and tasted the Karume Yaki, sweet and crispy, and it just melted in your mouth…. Yummy, yummy….
We got to taste different flavours of Kompeito, such as, coffee, blueberry, banana, mushroom, salt, wine, etc… some flavours are really interesting and unique.
We were each given a pack of the Kompeito which we made, and we purchased some other flavours of Kompeito as well. I also bought a set of Karume Yaki kit so that I can try it when I returned home.

Students learning Japanese in the Short-Term Program enjoyed watching their first time Sumo Wrestling.  Here is the comment from one of the students.

Oooooo, Sumo Wrestling on 13th Nov. 2015!!!

I have never watched Sumo Wrestling LIVE before. This is the first time that I am watching it LIVE… すごいね。。。
In fact, I knew nothing much about Sumo Wrestling, I only knew they were supposed to push the opponent out of the ring or made them fell to the ground in order to win the game.

Prior to the Sumo Wrestling match, Sensei provided some information and briefed us about Sumo Wrestling such as the history, the rules, the levels of a wrestler can attained, the techniques used to overcome the opponent, the prize money, the rituals, the ceremonies, and the etiquette while watching the match, etc…

It is a pity to hear that there are only about 700 wrestlers now.
And, there will be no salary for those wrestlers who belong to the range of Makushita – Jonokuchi. How are they going to survive without a salary!!!!????

In order to have a salary, a wrestler must attain a level within the range of Yokozuna – Juryo.

We reached Fukuoka Kokusai Center around 3 p.m. While we were taking photos, some wrestlers passed by, and we managed to catch a glimpse of them. They are so huge…

We proceeded to our seats, watched the last few rounds of the Juryo grade’s matches, then followed by the Makuuchi grade. The duration of a match was very short and fast, there were a few times the matches ended before me knowing it…
Although I may not know the wrestlers, but it is really exciting to watch the match LIVE and cheering them. The matches ended at 6 p.m. with a ceremony called  Yomitori Shiki.

Although Sumo Wrestling is one the traditional sports of Japan, but to my surprise, I was told that most of the wrestlers are not Japanese, most of them are from Mogolia, hence,  hopefully Japan will look into ways to attract more Japanese to take up this sports and keep it going.

An enjoyable, interesting and exciting event.

One of the traditional hand crafts in Fukuoka is Hakata Doll made from clay and colored.  This tradition has a long history for more than 400 years.  Our students enjoyed painting dolls for NILS activity.

“The clay figure painting activity was rather enjoyable. We started off taking a train go Tenjin from Ohashi, then a bus then walled through the downtown for a bit. Upon reaching the store we were prompted to pick a model of clay sculptures to paint. These ranged from little girls to dragons to geishas to objects amongst other things. Once picking one just sat down and spent the rest of the day painting it. As simple as it sounds, the actual task was daunting, although the paint was quick drying, the small details of the clay would quickly get smoothed out if too many coats of incorrect paint filled the gap, and with the precision of how detailed these lines where made, messing up a few times was more the guaranteed. Regardless of the frustration of trying to make every detail as perfect as possible , the actual activity was very fun. I would never have though to try something like this if I was not brought here by the school. Thanks to them I got to try something I never would have done otherwise.”

“This trip was a lot of fun. It was amazing to see all of the beautiful hand crafted dolls.

They were all painted so beautifully!! I couldn’t wait to pick my own and get to work. There were quite a few dolls to choose from, I couldn’t decide if I wanted a dragon, a horse, a geisha, or a samurai. I decided to go with a woman wearing a kimono. I decided to base her off of the Shinsengumi. It was great to see every ones thoughts and ideas come to life in their dolls. We had one hour to paint, which wasn’t enough time for me, so I will go back soon and finish my HIJIKATA.”

Hojoya Festival is one of the big three festivals in Fukuoka.  It is held in mid-September every year.

“I have been to many Japanese festivals, but I think I liked this one the best. It was big enough to make a whole day there worthwhile, but small enough to not be over whelming. It’s good to know that Fukuoka has its own festivals of this nature. And it was amazing to see people from all over Kyusyu gathered in one spot.

I enjoyed the shrine, and the flower arranging displays, but my favorite part was the food!!

There were so many food stands from all over Kyusyu, and even some Tokyo style treats. Luckily for me, there were foreign food stands as well, so I got to eat some amazing tacos!!  I met a lady at a cheese boll stand that was so impressed with Japanese that she gave me a とくべつ(special) service. The food was truly amazing. Everything was home made. For the tacos, they made the tortillas from scratch, it looked and smelled so good. Before deciding what to eat, I walked through the entire festival, and took notes of what I wanted to try. Cheese balls, chocolate covered bananas, yakisoba, tacos, blended grapefruit, and fried potatoes!! I ate it all. At a lot of stands, if you ordered something you could play rock paper scissors with the owner to win a prize! For dessert we found a stand that sold Turkish ice cream!  It’s very sticky and elastic, and the owner used the stickiness to play sticks on the customers. He had a long metal pole that he used to scoop the ice cream, the stuck the ice cream to the cone, then put the cone in front of the costumer. When they tried to grab it, he would pull it away fast! That ice cream was so delicious. It was the perfect way to end a perfect day.”

“As this year’s summer starts to wind down, we celebrated the ending of summer at the Hojoya festival.  Hojoya is one of the big three Fukuoka festivals and is held every years from September 12-18 at Hakozaki-gu Shrine.  Hojoya is a Buddhist festival that serves as a reminder to be thankful for our life and the lives around us and be thankful for all the animals and plants that sustain our lives.

As soon as we got out of the station we were able to see many food stalls and souvenir shops and the huge crowd of people.

First, we headed to the shrine for photographs and good lick souvenirs. Also, anyone that wanted to pray for safety and blessings could do so at the shrine.

Next, we headed to the food stalls. There were over 200 stalls selling traditional Japanese food as well as a few western food stalls. I had a slice of pineapple, a fresh grapefruit, a chicken taco, and Turkish ice cream.

I didn’t eat Japanese food at the Hojoya festival because I wanted to try something different and I’ve already eaten a lot of Japanese food in my 3 months here in Fukuoka. The chicken taco was very good, but my hands got messy from eating it. Fortunately, the chicken taco came with a towelette to wipe my hands clean. The vendor selling the Turkish ice cream put on a little performance form everyone buying an ice cream. We wanted his performance and then we each bought an ice cream. The Turkish ice cream vendor’s performance started with him using a long stick to get the ice cream from the container and swirled it around my head on the stick. Very interesting and he didn’t drop the ice cream. Finally, we finished off the night by visiting an air soft gun target game. I did pretty good at the air soft gun game.

I made one of my last memories here at Hojoya before I go back home.”

“The Hojoya festival was a massive gathering of people from all over the Fukuoka province. As we emerged out of the subway we were immediately greeted by an ocean of people coasting along the endless rows of shops. Yakitori and Hello kitty and Yakitori and plastic masks and Yakitori and ice cream and Yakitori and Yakiniku and Yakitori. The shops all lead up to a temple. Upon entering the temple, you wash your hands at the basin with the ladle then wash out your mouth. Inside the temple was many many lined perfectly manicured flower displays. I mean that literally, these flowers where so perfectly artistically displayed that even pictures couldn’t do them justice. Inside the temple courtyard was also a line of Omamori shops(lucky charms), selling charms for good luck, health, money, or protection. The shops in the main strip consisted of many different food stands and some toy or souvenir stands. The food was stuff like Yakitori (the infamous chicken on a stick), Yakiniku (the lesser known beef on a stick), elastic ice cream from Turkey, Tacos ( though these where more like a Japanese style crepe with taco fillings), and shaved ice. Amongst the food stalls there where also toy and souvenir stalls with cute trinkets or inflatable toys to play with. And then there where the game stalls, ranging from fish catching games to gun shooting games. Speaking of games, the food vendors loved to play rock paper scissors, if you won you got a free extra whatever you bought. All in all the festival was an amazing experience and I’d defiantly want to go to another!”

NILS students in the Short-Term Program enjoyed making their own kumihimo, a traditional braided cord.

“Today’s activity took place in Akasaka, where we supposed to make our own Kumihimo. But what’s that exactly? What I could understand from the lovely Japanese lady was, that this kind of cord can used a belt or was used in the ancient time for the samurais as a gadget for their sword cases.
To be honest, I didn’t really have an idea, how it would look like, until we started to make them. Taking eight single threads and weave them together produces a cord. However, there are different types of making them. We did two. The first one to start with wasn’t that difficult to make, but time consuming. For a 15 cm long cord we needed about 40 minutes to make them.  From now on, I appreciate such traditional handcraft work even more. We did it during sitting on the floor. For us western people, or probably me only, it is ok sitting about an hour on the floor doing the work in the meantime. That shouldn’t be understood as a complaint at all, it is, I think, worth mentioning, that sitting on the floor for a longer time can afterwards make it hard to stand up again, because you get a little bit stuck in the sitting position. However, being productive and creating a nice omiyage for our families and friends counts way more than having (only) something bought.”   —Dennis-san

“We took a train from Ohashi station to Tenjin and from there a bus to another stop. And then we walked a little ways through the downtown, until we arrived at the kumihimo class. Kumihimo is making these strap sort of things that are meant to be accessories while wearing traditional Japanese formal wear. A mere string that’s tied in a complex way. We made two of these each, one more complex than the other. These are made using a stool – like tool with a hole in the top. A weight anchoring down on the strap as it’s being made, pulling down the fibers that are being anchored from the outside by their spool. Actually making these you have to make move these spools in a pattern on the outside, making the thread in the middle tie together. The first being a bunch of flipping back and forward to the opposite side, the second me in moving two spools in two sets clockwise then another two sets of two counterclockwise. Although confusing for a while, you eventually build into a rhythm. In the end you have a strap with a pattern based off the technique and colors you used, pretty ones at that. At the end they gave us a small cup of coffee and an interesting type of cheese cracker and a gift for using their store.” —Hunter-san

NILS offers you a variety of cultural activities, and you will definitely have a wonderful experience!

We visited Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine and Kyushu National Museum in early September.  Students enjoyed Japan’s ancient history.

“Dazaifu is a famous place in Fukuoka area, which is definitely worth visiting.
To reach their shrine you have to pass a realy nice road with many Omiyage shops and very good-looking restaurants. At the shrine area you should follow a specific way to wash your hands and pray, which ones introduced, it isn’t so difficult. At this place the shrine was build for poeple who wanna pray for getting better in their studies.
After that we headed to the Kyushu National Museum, which contained many interesting objects like vases, ancient katanas and maps painted mostly from Europeans, discovering the Asian countries in the last centuries.”  —Dennis-san.

NILS students in the Short-Term Program went on a bus trip to Kumamoto and Miyazaki prefectures last week.

Here is the comment from one of the students.

What a wonderful treat! Beautiful landscapes, fresh air, quiet, contemplative shrines in secluded parts of the countryside, mountains, rivers, and much more… including local wines. One of the best class outings, and one of the best trips out to the countryside I had during my stay in Japan.

Kumamoto prefecture is located at the center of the Kyushu Island, about 150 km south from Fukuoka city. Natural parks and nature preserves cover about 20 percent of the prefecture. The entire area is known for its scenic beauty.

We took a locally operated bus from near the Tenjin station in Fukuoka, which took us all the way to the center area of Kumamoto. A very comfortable ride in an air-conditioned bus, with plenty of short stops on the way, to stretch our legs.

The further away from Fukuoka we were getting, the more beautiful and scenic the landscape was becoming. We were passing through small villages surrounded by countless, geometrically shaped rice fields, small vegetable and flower gardens. The bus began to climb higher and higher into the hills, and we found ourselves in a lush, green forest. The road was winding between steep volcanic mountain peaks covered in thick forest. Looking through the bus’s windows into the valleys below us, we could see small village houses, and countless terraces of rice fields hugging the steep mountainsides.

Around noontime, we arrived at one of the local farms, where we were treated to a wonderful buffet of freshly prepared food using local ingredients. What a great feast that was! There were about 20 different dishes to choose from, variety of teas, and delicious desserts. On the way out we could purchase preserves and other local products.

After lunch we were on our way again, this time to visit local shrines. We stopped at Heitate shrine, Amanoiwato shrine, and visited Takachiho Gorge with its picturesque waterfalls, bridges, and famous shrine. We had a chance to admire local architecture, peaceful locations of Shinto shrines secluded in remote areas, away from city noise. We had a chance to walk through the forest, over mountain rivers, into caves carved into the sides of a mountain that housed many small shrines. We also got a chance to witness some of the ceremonies, and had a guided tour of one of the shrines. At the end we were able to purchase some souvenirs, local foods, and locally made wines.

This adventure took almost entire day. In the late afternoon, we claimed back into our confortable bus and filled with great memories rode back to Fukuoka.

One of the first things I noticed about Japan is that many restaurants have their menu in the form of plastic foods showcased in the display window. I found this quite interesting as back home. You usually have to ask to see the menu once you’ve entered the establishment. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the menu is posted in written-form in the window. So I thought it was very interesting that a visual form of the menu was available for potential customers to see.

The shop was so cool. Just like the fake foods displayed in the many restaurants in Japan, the fake foods in this shop looked so real. If no one told me it was fake, I would definitely have tried to take a bite out of some of them.

Our class was given the choice of either making a parfait or a cake. I decided to make a parfait.

We got to shop around and pick items we would like to put in our dessert. For example, for my parfait, I chose pocky sticks, M&Ms, Kit Kat bars, blueberries, strawberries, and a heart-shaped chocolate cookie. Afterwards, I picked a parfait-cup, poured “chocolate syrup” into the cup, went to a machine and poured some sort of resin that looked like ice-cream into the cup, and then decorated my parfait. I do not consider myself a crafty person, but my parfait looked pretty awesome.

Everyone’s desserts were awesome and so professional-looking. I just wish they were edible.

At the second July 2015 all students from NILS and Hirose sensei headed by bus from Ohashi Station to a nearby kitchen, where our ramen self-cooking took place.

In pairs of two we followed the instructions of the chef-de-cuisine to make our own ramen noodles.

Fortunately all ingredients and cooking staff were already well prepared, so we could focus on the step by step instructions.

It was really nice to see the progress from how our round dough became flater and flater. After cutting the dough in noodles stripes, we were ready to boil them. In addition we prepared some gyouza too.

I wasn’t sure if our ramen would taste, but it was quiet good, to be honest. The ramen you can have in restaurants are of course still better, but for the first time making ramen noodles by myself was a very worth experience.

All in all I can assume that this activity was very well prepared from NILS and carried out from Hirose sensei and the kitchen staff at the location. I fully recommend that program for following students from our school NILS!