35-Day City-Hopping: 1 Day in Fukuoka

Previously, we took a look at spending a day in Kumamoto which offers a bunch of different delicacies. Would it be possible to top the experience there? Find out as we explore spending a day in Fukuoka City. Note that due to an itinerary restructuring, I spent 1.5 days in Fukuoka City, but you can definitely do everything we’ll explore in a full day.

1 Day in Fukuoka City

Arriving in Fukuoka City (Hakata)

Between Kumamoto Station and Hakata Station, the Shinkansen takes around 45 minutes to complete a trip.

Having left Kumamoto later than preferred, it was already past 11:00 am after arriving in Fukuoka City and dropping off luggage at the hotel.

Since the lunch rush had not started, it was a good opportunity to take advantage of the low volume at restaurants. Fukuoka City is best known for its ramen, “Hakata Ramen”, which is typically known outside the area as “Tonkatsu Ramen”. Note that Tonkatsu Ramen is an umbrella term, and is not a 1-for-1 synonym for Hakata Ramen, but is often used synonymously due to the widespreadness of Hakata Ramen.

Given its popularity, finding Hakata Ramen in Fukuoka City is very simple. With a simple search for ramen on Google Maps, many highly rated restaurants pop up. As a pleasant surprise, the restaurant I had picked out also was shockingly cheap; their regular-sized ramen bowl had a starting price of a mere 290 yen!

But of course, you’re still paying for what you get; at 290 yen, they serve a basic bowl of ramen in soup with some green onions and a few slices of pork belly, with additional toppings costing extra. Despite these factors, the flavor is still nothing to scoff at; the soup was neither too heavy nor too light and had the right amount of salt, the noodles neither too hard nor too soft, and the meat wasn’t overly salty either. That’s not to say it wasn’t tasty though, it was absolutely delicious! Especially considering the price, this bowl of ramen definitely holds a spot towards the top of my list.

With lunch out of the way, next was a little sightseeing and the most optimal path at the time seemed like visiting the Fukuoka Castle Ruins and working back towards the downtown area. The castle ruins are fairly far from the ramen shop, but luckily the subway stops by both areas.

And since Fukuoka City Subway offers their own IC card, it was a good opportunity to add to my IC card collection, the Hayakaken IC card!

Arriving at the Fukuoka Castle Ruins, the area had mostly turned into a public green space which makes it a great escape from the chaotic downtown area of Hakata without having to travel too far out of the way. Luckily, some structures of the castle’s outer perimeter still remain and look well preserved.

Unfortunately, not much of the original castle remains except for its foundation. However, the elevated foundation offers a lovely skyline view over Fukuoka.

Across the street from the park is a shrine you can visit. It’s fairly small and simple, making it ideal for a quick stop.

What’s interesting was that the shrine had a lottery/raffle game you can play to win a prize. From what I recall, the fee to play was 500 yen and the top prizes were an Apple iPad and an Apple Watch. But to no avail, I won (what I realized in hindsight) an ema, a wooden tablet where you fill out your prayer and hang it up at the shrine (which I took back home with me, whoops!).

Having spent nearly an hour around the neighborhood of the park, it was about time to head back into the city.

It was also a good opportunity to grab a Nimoca IC card before I forget. The Nimoca card is slightly harder to obtain compared to the Hayakaken as Nimoca seems to be mainly available at bus terminals (in this case, Hakata bus terminal).

I had started to feel a bit peckish by now, so it was a good time to immediately put the Nimoca card to use given that I was already at the bus station. Next stop, Hakata Udon, where the noodles are soft (rather than chewy) and a clear broth is used as the soup base. Recommended by the waitress was the Gobouten Udon (Burdock Tempura Udon) which was apparently the most popular bowl at the restaurant.

Shockingly, the bowl of udon was already served in a matter of minutes; North American fast food chains have nothing on this Udon shop! All of this for a mere 480 yen! As an avid Udon enjoyer, Hakata-style is a must try!

To finalize the meal, a dessert seemed nice. In Hakata, there’s a traditional sweet, tsukushi mochi, which is only sold by a local store, Josuian. This store was diagonally across the station from the Udon shop, so it made for a good walk after eating.

Oddly enough, there was a table in the confectionery shop, but apparently it wasn’t for customers to eat on. So keep in mind that you’ll either need to carry it around on you or bring it back to the hotel.

The store also had a seasonal daifuku mochi (mochi with a sweet filling, typically red bean). For the winter, they use a chestnut as a filling.

As for the tsukushi mochi, it’s wrapped cutely like a mini bento box. The mochi itself is covered in a yellow powder made from roasted soybeans which you can coat with a brown, sugary syrup to help add moisture.

By then, it was already fairly late in the afternoon. I really wanted to check out the large reclining buddha statue at Nanzoin Temple but after factoring the time to travel, arrival at the temple would’ve been just before it closed, so I opted to skip it instead. It struck me then that had I not left Kumamoto late, I likely would’ve been able to make it before closing. In hindsight, I have 2 thoughts about this mistake. First, spend some time double checking business hours and reworking your schedule accordingly; Fukuoka Castle Ruins doesn’t look like it closes overnight, so I probably should’ve visited the temple first. Second, the main hall and the 45th Pilgrimage Site remains open, so I probably should’ve gone for a look anyways.

But regardless, there’s plenty of shrines and temples that are near each other and situated close to Hakata Station. These alone should be enough to burn through an hour.

Starting with Kushida Shrine, it’s surprisingly busy on a weekday.

The shrine is relatively large given that it’s basically located in the heart of Hakata. There’s also smaller shrines which are within shrine grounds.

There was also what seems to be a parade float that was given to the shrine as an offering.

Next is Tochoji Temple which is approximately 5 minutes of a walk from Kushida Shrine.

The ground level of the area is free to access, but there’s an upstairs portion which requires payment to enter. By paying, you’ll be able to see the giant wooden Buddha and experience a walk through darkness.

The following shrine, Sumiyoshi Shrine, was a bit further out at approximately 20 minutes from Tochoji Temple but was also surprisingly large. The rules on photography appeared to be a bit stricter so I opted to only capture one photo of what is supposedly an ancient sumo wrestler. It’s said that pressing your palm against his will give you some of his strength.

Across the street from Sumiyoshi Shrine is Rakusuien, a Japanese garden with a tea room on premise. The garden closes at 5 pm and I had arrived 5 minutes before closing, so I could only grab a quick shot before having to run back out.

As it had just reached 5pm, it was a good time to grab dinner while the rush hadn’t started, or at least that was the plan… Another popular food to try while in Hakata is Tetsunabe Gyoza, piping hot gyoza served in an iron pot, but surprisingly there was already a lineup in front of the restaurant which was fully seated 7 minutes past open!

The gyoza is ordered in portions of 8, costing about 500 yen per portion, and is the sizing I chose to save some stomach space for later. Unfortunately it ended up being my last meal of the day, so I really regret not ordering more as the wait in line was quite long and the size of one portion is more of a snack than a meal…

Thankfully, gyoza wasn’t the only order made. Hakata has many local specialties and mentaiko (spicy pollack roe) is one of them.

Overall, it was a delicious snack, and only having a dessert to follow seemed appropriate. For this, I headed to a soft-serve ice cream shop called “Daimyo Soft Cream” right under Hakata Station which was on my list of places to try. Unfortunately, their ice-cream machine was half-broken at the time so their matcha ice cream was not available, leaving vanilla as the only ice cream for sale. Fortunately they had one other matcha product available, a matcha affogato.

Next was to check out Canal City Hakata, a shopping center with some entertainment services. Parts of the mall are inside, while some of the stores are accessible from the outside. Since it was still the start of the New Year, the Christmas decorations were still left up, beautifying the outer sections of the center.

The first store that I ended up seeing upon entering was The Gundam Base Fukuoka, which had a bunch of displays and a fairly large selection of merchandise. Unfortunately I’ve only watched the latest Gundam series, The Witch from Mercury, so I wasn’t too familiar with all the products (and thus refrained from taking photos as well).

To add to the excitement, there was also a Gundam performance at the center of the shopping center which takes advantage of programmatic fountains for extra effects.

Eventually, the performance transitions into a mini-game where the audience can join in as players. This game consisted of players choosing 1 of 2 teams and having a screen-tapping competition.

Between shopping and browsing, the one other interesting thing in Canal City was the Ghibli goods store which had a human-size Totoro on display.

Unfortunately, I forgot the last item on my “Fukuoka to-do list,” which left me without plans for the rest of the night and led me to return to the hotel.

2nd Visit

Luckily, I’d be back in Fukuoka later due to some travel plan adjustments which meant that I was able to check off said last item as well as try out the green tea ice cream!

As for the last item on the to-do list, it was to eat at a Yatai, a food cart where patrons are often crammed next to each other eating food that is typically cooked right in front of them. First starting with Tonkotsu Ramen.

In some locations, stalls are lined up next to each other making it easy to hop over to another cart to eat other foods. Other stalls might be located further apart, but this allows for a nice walk along the canal.

For the final meal of the night, it would be at a grilled food-type yatai serving fried ramen and mentaiko tamagoyaki (spicy pollock roe omelet).

Back to the Original Timeline

The following day would be a fairly big day and it would require waking up early so I opted to try to sleep as early as possible. Stay tuned to find out what could have been so important to wake up early for!

Summary and Lessons Learned

Summary

Hakata Station

This is the “central hub” of Fukuoka city where the Shinkansen stops. Allocate approximately 45 minutes of a Shinkansen ride between here and Kumamoto’s Shinkansen station.

Fukuoka City Subway

The Fukuoka City Subway accepts the nationally-compatible IC cards such as Suica as payment. They also offer their own version of IC cards.

Attractions

Fukuoka Castle Ruins

A peaceful park (located inside Maizuru Park) found not too far from the central area of Hakata, Fukuoka. Few artifacts of the castle remain, but the area makes for a great mini-escape from the city without having to travel too far and provides a good skyline view. The castle ruins are also conveniently located next to a subway stop.

Gokoku Shrine

A shrine located south and across the street of Fukuoka Castle Ruins/Maizuru Park.

Kushida Shrine

A shrine located northwest of Hakata station (one subway stop away). On the grounds are some smaller shrines as well as a festival float on display.

Tochoji Temple

Located approximately a 5-minute walk northeast of Kushida Shrine, Tochoji Temple offers a free area and a paid area. Within the free area of the grounds, you can access the main hall, a secondary hall, and a pagoda. In the paid area (upper floor of the main hall), there’s a giant wooden buddha as well as a walk through darkness.

Sumiyoshi Shrine

A surprisingly large shrine located southwest of Hakata Station. A statue of an ancient sumo wrestler said to share his strength upon pressing against his palm can be found here.

Canal City Fukuoka

A large, multi-floored shopping mall located west of Hakata Station, accessible via a nearby subway stop. Throughout the day, visitors can enjoy fountain shows, which sometimes feature collaborations where the fountain is synced to video performances. For example, the Gundam store in Canal City had a collaboration that began as a video performance and transformed into an interactive game.

Food

Hakata Ramen

Whenever you eat Tonkatsu Ramen, there’s a high probability that it’s the Hakata Ramen variant. Knowing this, where better to try it the place it originated? For those unfamiliar, it’s noodles in a rich broth made from stewing pork bones and is often served with Chashu, marinated braised pork belly. Depending where you go, you might be able to find ramen starting at 290 yen!

Hakata Udon

Udon in Japan is commonly chewy, but in the Hakata-style it’s cooked to a soft texture making it easy to eat! One popular way to enjoy this is with Gobouten, Burdock Tempura. Definitely worth tasting for those who enjoy udon!

Tsukushi Mochi

A mochi variant sold by Josuian in Hakata which is enjoyed with soy bean powder and brown sugar syrup. The beautiful packaging makes this sweet a wonderful souvenir!

Daifuku Mochi

Another variant of mochi which is stuffed with a sweet filling. Daifuku mochi can be found across Japan but Josuian also sells these, removing the need to find another shop while in Hakata. Be on the lookout for seasonal daifuku as special fillings will be used depending on the sales period. For example, January had a chestnut filled daifuku available.

Tetsunabe Gyoza

While pan-fried gyoza is commonly served on a plate, Fukuoka likes to do it differently by serving it in a cast-iron skillet. As a result, the food remains hot throughout your meal. Interestingly, the texture of the gyoza ends up between that of pan-fried gyoza and that of deep-fried gyoza.

Mentaiko

Mentaiko (Pollock roe) is another popular dish from Hakata which is often served with some spiciness. Like other varieties of roe, a significant portion of its flavor profile is salty.

Daimyo Soft Cream

While Fukuoka isn’t particularly known for its ice cream, Daimyo Soft Cream may be worth stopping by if you feel in the mood for some soft-serve ice cream. The ice cream was surprisingly rich, evident by its strong milky flavor and creamy thickness. They also offer affogatos if you’re looking for something to drink as well.

Yatai

Yatai (food carts) are not any particular type of food but, as the name implies, is a cart where you can sit and enjoy a meal. Yatai are largely non-existent in the rest of Japan, making this a unique experience specific to Hakata. It can also be a great way to find many of the local cuisines in a small hub.

Lessons Learned

One Day is Technically Enough

If arriving fairly early in the morning, it’s definitely possible to squeeze an itinerary that covers many of the tourist attractions in the Hakata, Fukuoka area. Do note that doing so would be fairly tight schedule-wise. But with this said…

Two Days Would Probably Be More Ideal

Once again, one day is possible, but it makes for a very tight itinerary and would end up feeling quite rushed. I also felt that Hakata, Fukuoka had a lot more to offer than just a single day’s worth of attractions as I had spent very little time randomly exploring the city. At the very least, the food alone would merit staying a few extra days.

Fukuoka (Arguably) Has The Best Food In Japan

As tasty as Wagyu beef was, or any other expensive or unique foods for that matter, I’d still say that Fukuoka had the tastiest foods of everything I tried in all of Japan, especially relative to price. Note that this is coming from someone whose culinary preference is in salty/savory, carb-heavy foods. From the classic pork-broth ramen noodles to crispy pan-fried dumplings, you get to experience these familiar flavours as authenitcally as possible.