Four of us finished work and got into Fukuoka for the night. We did the usual walk around to see what there was to see, found a pub, another good restaurant, found another pub, and called it a night.
Next day there were only two. The two Japanese guys headed towards home - Tokyo - and left us to it. We found a tourist information stand and had a bit of a look at a few leaflets and found ..... Oktoberfest in Fukouka, yesterday and today.
Bargain !!!
After stepping out at the wrong subway station we found a sign to a temple and went to have a look. There were some wedding photos being taken in traditional costume complete with rickshaw. The photogaphers even got out of the way for us to take some photos.
Then we finally found the beer festival. All the usual was on for the day with the beer flowing and a Bavarian band in for the event. They played spoons, bells, clarinet, trombone, saxaphone, drums, bugle, piano accordian, a bloody long wooden thing AND taught the crowd how sing when toasting - in German. They were good fun and made for a good day.
When the sun had set and we thought we needed a change of scenery it was back to the subway, got lost and walked back to the city. It wasn't all that far and the exercise cleared the head for a Vietnamese feed at the Vietnam Frog restaurant. I'm not sure what we had but it was good.
Then, seeing as we were in the party part of town, it was another shortish walk to a pub or club that was in the tourist book we'd picked up with the worst bloody map they could find in the back. There must have been something going on that night because we came across a procession, all female, that were carrying huge wooden carriages with other girls on top of it bouncing the whole thing to a chant. Then there were two big guys dressed in a cross between a street rapper and traditional Japanese clothing, both with microphones, on top of a small stand secured to a power pole at a street intersection. They had a group of dancers in the middle of the intersection and were shouting, grunting and leading the dancers along on an exhibition dance that people were joining in on. We saw these guys twice that night, both times with dancers and in the streets.
Then we finally found a pommy pub on the seventh floor of a tiny building and sat down to a beer and soccer. A local guy befriended us and got to practise his English for the next hour or so. He turned out to be an accountant who was out with his workmates and was going to be in trouble with his other boss when he got home.
And that was Japan. Next day I was back in Weihai for the night, then spent the next day and a half trying to get to Ulaan Bataar because Air China wouldn't fly in because it had snowed. From almost balmy Japan to snowy Mongolia in a day or so. Life's tough, eh?
