kitakyushu!

[arisha]

Day 18 (Tuesday, January 27, 2009)

So this trip report entry is going to be a little bit fail due not only to my previously mentioned inability to remember anything from this point on, but also because on this day I only took ten pictures, and they're all of pretty much the same thing. Apologies!! D:

This day was the day of wandering around Kitakyushu, the city where athena_crikey lived during her days with the JET Programme. First up, Kokura Castle!


Another photo in which I try to juxtapose old and new. I love this kind of stuff. x)


Closer to the castle, I being snapping away, starting with a couple photos that are less than stellar, lol.






I think Kokura Castle is really pretty, although it's not quite as striking as Osaka Castle.


Detail of the above photo.


... and a proper close-up. I enjoy the fish sculptures. xD


Looking at this picture again I was all "OMG ANOTHER MOAT!!," but thinking about it I feel that's probably just the river. Or maybe it's not, now I can't even decide!


The entrance. We didn't go inside because athena_crikey had heard that it's much less spectacular than Osaka Castle. :(


HEY TREE, CAN YA MOVE?

I'M TRYNNA TAKE A PICTURE HERE!


omg, two ~juxtaposition~ photos in the same post! xD I took this when we were still in the castle sort of area, walking towards the giant mall called Riverwalk. Is it really correct to call these types of structures "malls," I don't know. My local malls don't have five floors, nor do they tend to include a supermarket, a movie theatre, a live theatre, and an artistic dancing fountain! x) Maybe the city I live in is just not big enough to support this sort of thing.

While walking through the above photo towards Riverwalk, we passed a guy who was prepping some kind of demon decoration for the spring Setsubun, which would take place on February third.

We grabbed lunch (sushi and Calpis for me! <3 ) in the grocery store in the basement of Riverwalk (one good thing about hanging with athena_crikey is she made sure I ate more than once a day, which is a task I tend to fail at when I'm on my own). We ate it in the food court, at a table right across from a TV that was playing Japanese-dubbed Playhouse Disney. xD!

Also on this day, athena_crikey took me to a department store, which was kind of awesome because I had yet to visit a proper Japanese department store. We looked at scarves and chopsticks and some very pretty combs. There was one that I totally would've bought had it not cost more than I'm willing to spend for a decorative item, lol. We also explored the toy department a bit - their Kirarin Revolution section was so much bigger than I'd expected! I found the star tambourine toy that a bunch of the audience members at the Hello! Project concert had pulled out of their bags during Milky Way's song. I didn't buy it, but nor did I leave the department empty-handed, as athena_crikey bought me a belated birthday present in the form of a Disneyfied set of hanafuda playing cards. I haven't played with them yet so that's kind of a fail on my part, but I love them anyway. I bought a lot of Japan-only Disney merchandise but for some reason I feel like this is one of the more unique items I found.

I believe this is also the day when I bought a Japanese-subtitled Gone With the Wind DVD, because it was only 500yen (there was a sticker on it that was all "Buy it with just one coin!" which I thought was especially funny because I didn't have a 500yen coin on me and had to use a bill) and so yeah. I've only watched one scene so far, but interestingly enough, the subtitles to that scene manage to erase everything that's unique about the movie's dialogue. But at the same time I have no idea how you would remedy that.

And then, as I recall, we went to a different grocery store to get dinner and then we hung out at athena_crikey's apartment and watched Detective Conan on TV and then Dr. Horrible and Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series on YouTube. xD

NEXT ENTRY: Getting lost in Fukuoka!

Comments

[the-wykydtron.livejournal.com]

So I was going to be all SPUZZY YOU LIAR WHERE IS THAT FISH I DON'T SEE NO GODDAMNED FISH except then I found the fish.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

[arisha.livejournal.com]

I like this comment. If this was Facebook, I would click "like."