25 November 2015
No mountain
Shopping markets and shrines in Fukuoka
Surprise! Tomorrow I start a 30 hour journey home, which means I should be up a mountain today, but I am not.
Multiple reasons, its raining a little, theres not a lot of mountains around here, my knee still hurts when I wake up but strangely not when I walk on it, and I have some really annoying work to do for a few hours so I dont end up in trouble with the military on arrival back into Australia.
So with all that in mind, I set out for a 5 hour walk early, and to do some shopping. Instead of walking around the base of big shops taking photos, I actually ventured into some and saw some terrifying things coming sooon to Australia.
Other highlights include Star Wars and Christmas. No just kidding. Other highlights included opening my hotel room window cause its damn hot in here, only to have a knock at the door 2 minutes later to find out why I had opened my window.
I also noted that in a visit to a coffee shop today that the cups get marked if you are a white guy, because there was another white guy waiting for his coffee and his cup had the same texta mark on it. He wandered off and when his coffee was ready they were very insistent on giving it to me. Once he returned from the bathroom or wherever to collect his, all the girls behind the counter had shocked looks of confusion.
Finally, I think I saw someone attempt to shoplift in Yodabashi. The place had just opened, its the only place that opens at 9AM. A young guy put some headphones under a jumper he had folded on top of his man bag. The thing is, he knew I saw him, and he was now confused. So I kept looking at him with my piercing gaze, and he put them back and gave a small bow before scurrying off.
So there you go, I am now working part time as Yodabashi store security.
Boring photos today.
Gambling is illegal. Imagine if it was legal. Apparently the sole object in this world is to buy some ball bearings and feed them into a machine to win vouchers to buy teddy bears..... or gold and silver trinkets with a known value that a nearby hole in the wall will buy off you.
The allure of the sole object in this world has people lined up waiting for opening time all over Japan. Dont these guys have jobs? Its only men. If they have no job how do they afford this? I just read that 60% of all income in Japan is inherited so theres that.
The great thing about Japanese electronics shops is you can try everythng. In ear earbuds, electric shavers, electric toothbrushes, nose hair clippers, everything.
Especially useful is displays like this, where you can try all the interchangeable lenses on a tiny train set. I took photos of me taking photos. So meta.
I thought they were selling washing machine lids, but no, in Japan this is your household lighting. Enjoy the blinding white glow of fluro dome.
This is the craziest thing I saw today. Its an ear cleaning system you can buy, that has a camera on the end and some kind of mechanical scraper you insert in your ear.
You can either stare through a lense attached to the cable, or plug it into the usb port of your computer or tv for a big screen view of whats inside you.
Home colonoscopy attachment also available.
They take their chopsticks seriously. Personal fitting and modification service included in price.
Calbee is a junk food brand that make potato chips. They also have cafes where they will make you some sort of potato chip meal often involving ice cream, chocolate sauce and cream. I had 2 buckets.
These guys won a competition to stand in the street and yell at the building whilst holding various poses.
So I took up a seat nearby to enjoy the brass band playing the star wars theme. Not joking, it was all star wars hits back to back.
The tiny amount of rain was to my advantage, I got a seat that wasnt even damp to enjoy my bagel purchased from the basement food market. I was concerned what was going to be on the one on the left, raw fish paste perhaps? But no, its blueberry cream cheese.
Time to head into another shrine to thank pokemon for my bagel.
This is the god of sumo. He looks over this shrine.
Its very red.
And of course, theres a nearby fish market, where you can can buy live fish, dead fish, dried fish, liquified fish, fish cakes, fish cookies, fish balls and distilled fish essence.