Written by Anouk & Joel
Reisco invited us on a gruelling hike to Iimori mountain today. Which me, Anouk, and my co writer, Joel, politely declined.
When the more diligent part of the group left for Iimori, me and Anne headed for Across Fukuoka. This building looks from a distance like a hillside forest in the middle of the centre. When walking on the step garden, it feels like that too. The only major difference being the spectacular view of the skyline Fukuoka city on the very top.
After catching a breath we made our way to Ohori Park and met up with Joel. Ohori park once was an inlet of Hakata bay, later made into an outer moat of a castle, and has now become a massive park. It has so much to see and do, I’m sure we could spend days there. For now we had to settle for a quick walk right through it. We saw some lily ponds, castle ruins and gardens on our way to its famous lake.
After some very fluffy pancakes we turned back around again to canal city. A pretty shopping mall with greenery and nice water/light shows. Here we met up again with the Iimori hikers. Together we explored all of canal city and watched the malls own Disney show.
Later on we had a funny dinner at an Japanese-Italian pasta bar. We ate mentaiko cream carbonara with oolong tea, while listing to Mariah Carey’s “all i want for Christmas is you” playing on the background. After dinner we stranded at a Japanese summer festival. We talked and danced in circles with the locals, from who we learned some dances. We now know to clap when the singer says “hundai” and pretend to wash the windows at “wipa”.