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Alaska, United States
I am owned by Pauline and Mark Blasky. My hull was built at the Duncan Marine Yard in Taiwan and launched in Dec of 1980. It is a William Garden design based on the Pixie Design and called by Duncan Marine a Freedom 45. They are the fourth owners and have owned me the longest. They have done extensive refitting to me including replacing my entire deck structure and rig. My masts are roughly 10% taller than original and now are made of aluminium as opposed to the original wood ones, which, though pretty, were always problematic. You can read more about me under "MORE ABOUT SARI TIMUR"

June 13, 2014

Fukuoka - Sightseeing


Wednesday was a day for exploring Fukuoka.  One of the new people we met, Sakae-san, decided to use his off day and ferried us around in his van to a few of the many tourist attractions in Fukuoka.  Mena also came along to help make sure us gaijins didn’t get into too many problems.  First stop was the Yusentei Gardens, which are in the heart of town but still very picturesque gardens.  This used to be a resort for a samurai in the ancient times.  We especially liked feeding the koi, which chased us around from one edge of the pond to the other begging for food, and relaxing in the teahouse overlooking the pond.  After this we went for Sushi in a nearby restaurant complete with conveyor belt where you chose the food you wanted as it went by. 
Once our bellies were full and to keep us from napping in the van, we went off to the Kushida Shrine which is famous for the Gion Yamakaza festival, a tradition of over 760 years old.  This is a 15 day festival here in Fukuoka and one of the must go to events in all of Japan.  Unfortunately we will miss the climax part of this event as we are off to the US.  But we will get to see some of the buildup and maybe a practice run with the floats.  The last five days of the festival are a buildup to the actual race where the men of several different districts race carrying a float that weighs over a ton and is 7.3 metres tall.  We watched a video on this in the museum near the shrine, and also got to see them making the famous Hakata tops and some traditional cloth weaving.
After the temple we wandered around Hakata Canal City, which is a tourist and shopping area where Pauline’s brother and family will stay when they come to visit in a couple of weeks.  While wandering around in these streets we got to see one of the old floats.
After a long day we then went for our first Fukuoka Yatai.  Yatais are pushcarts that fold out into hawker style food stalls.  And each one has their specialty.  We kept it simple at first and had a local ramen and yakitori.  All in all a very full day and we were tired by the time we got back to the boat.

Painting the wooden tops and some finished tops

The Kushida Shrine

One of the old floats we found

The yatais by the Naka River

The pond in the Yusentei Gardens

Posted by SY Sari Timur at 03:13

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