First Visitors in Fukuoka

Pauline's brother and his family just arrived for a visit.  We went out for teppanyaki last night and around the marina area today.  Young Joshua whose third birthday is tomorrow had a ball today.

Josh intent on steering a straight course!

Hey Josh can be in two places at the same time with Photoshop 

The chef took this photo while we were waiting to eat

Sari Timur Tucked In

As we plan to head to the USA for a few weeks, we decided to move Sari Timur to one of the permanent berths.  The only one that could fit it was a tight fit and we needed to back her in.  But she is in tight as a bug.

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

Planning

Well we have organized a dry dock for Sari Timur starting on the 4 th of August so our  trip to USA may be a bit altered and we will probably depart the States before the famous Coast Guard week in Grand Haven..  Pauline's brother and his family will be here for the end of the month birthday party for her nephew.  So far we love Fukuoka, we have met up again with Mena and have finally met the famous Jaap and Marijke who have helped us organize our dry dock.  We have booked to stay in Odo until we decide to leave around the first week of Sept for the Setouchi Rally which starts in Hiroshima on the 20th of  Sept.

Fukuoka

Position 33 d 35.54 m N 130 d 18.68 m E.  It took us exactly two months from the day we left Guam 8 April til we finally arrived in Fukuoka 7 June.  We are still finding unseasonal cold temps but everyone assures us that will stop soon enough, and we will be wishing for cool.  Sari Timur will stop here for just shy of 3 months, while we catch our breath for a while, put her through a dry dock and hopefully get the heater installed just before the hot spell.  We have entered the Setouchi Rally.  If people are interested you should send us a private message and we will let you know if there is space during that leg.  Should be lots of fun.

Right now it is late and we need some sleep.

Hiding out in Iki Shima

Position 33 d 44.88 m N 129 d 40.70 m E.  We are currently in Ikishima and it looks like we will be here for a couple more days.  We stayed way longer in Hirado than we had planned because we enjoyed it so much but now a series of fronts are coming down on us for the next few days and making the weather kind of icky.  We therefore feel we will stay as we are, nestled up in a very protected little spot.  The weather isn't terrible out there but it would be a little messy so since we do not have to go, we aren't!  Iki is just a small little fishing island about 17 miles by 15 miles and not much else.  It is kind of a pretty island but we have been spoiled by the spectacular for the last little while.

It does not have free WiFi that we can access for more than 10 minutes and our on board router quit working (we think that is just a registration issue)  but we are going to be blind for a few days until the weather clears and we get into Fukuoka.  It is kind of famous for the Onsens but we do not have a car so not sure if we will be going to any.

Hey Chris hope you can post this for us.  We are stranded for a while. (yup, I did)

Sari Timur by the Iki City dock

Hirado Sightseeing

After coming from Nagasaki we thought we had seen a lot of history.  Or at least places where the East met West.  But tiny Hirado played a big part as well.

The first ship with Westerners to arrive was Portuguese in 1550.  But they soon had a falling out with the locals and had to withdraw to Nagasaki in 1551.  The Dutch established a trading house in 1609 and soon trade was flourishing.  Streets, bridges, land reclamation to make quayside wharfs, large buildings etc were soon part of Hirado.  The English came and established a trading house in 1613 but left after 10 years.  In 1639 the Shoganate closed all trade with foreigners except the Dutch.  But the Dutch were moved out of Hirado and re-established in Nagasaki in 1941. 

There are loads of sights to see and it is a very picturesque port.  We have to admit though everything is pretty much up and down.  Actually there are more ruins of steps than anything else.  Which means we got our exercise while sightseeing.

One of the things we found interesting was the gravestone of William Adams locally called Miura Anjin.  He was a Dutch seaman who drifted ashore in 1600 and soon became very influential and a foreign affairs advisor to the Shogun.  We both enjoyed James Clavel's Shogun and we think this figure was the inspiration for that novel.

Hirado played a huge part in the survival of Christianity during the closed door era and even today 15% of the locals are Catholic.  Francis Xavier made three trips.  There are loads of shrines and churches marking many martyrs and persecutions.

There is also some unique food here but one thing Hirado is famous for is the beef.  We splurged and went to one of the more famous Yakiniku restaurants last night for a feast of beef.  We westerners can talk about our tender beef but I don't remember any of it being so easy to cut with chopsticks as the cuts we had last night.  Definitely "Oishi".

Old wall built by the Dutch

Grave of William Adams aka Miura Anjin

The Francis Xavier Memorial Church

The church and temples

Hirado Castle

View of Sari Timur from the castle

View of castle from Sari Timur

Hirado and Why We Cruise

Actually there are many reasons we cruise.  But one of them is when we enter a port, we are more than just a tourist flying in.  We tend to mix into the community a bit differently than if we traveled here another way.  Partially because we have to interface with the hardware stores, grocery shops, petrol kiosks etc i.e. mix with the common folk.  I also think it helps to bring a pretty boat from a distant land.  And you never know how things will play out.  An example of this just happened to us. A couple of days ago just after tying up here in Hirado we invited the guy who caught our lines aboard for a beer.  A little while later another bypasser was looking intently at our boat so we invited him to join us.  He spoke fairly good English and was giving us some of the low down on the area.  He couldn't drink as he had to go to work in about an hour.  We asked what he did and he told us many jobs but one of them was at a convenience store.  Anyway just another aquaintance.  That was until today a few days later, we were a bit tired after hiking up several steps to the museum and 10,000 more steps to the castle (well maybe only a couple hundred but it seemed like 10k!) we stopped into a store to buy a couple of cold drinks.  And you guessed it, the guy behind the counter was our friend from the first day.  He asked us what we were up to and suggested we go next door.  It turns out it was a place they made Sake. Here we met the proprietor whom we think just had a call from our new friend and he tried to explain Sake and Shochu making to us in broken English.  But then he figured the best way to describe everything is break out the finished product for some free samples.  It was really quite fun, us jabbering in our extremely limited Japanese and him in his broken English ( which actually wasn't bad).  And after about 43 samples we settled on our favorite and bought two bottles.  We will remember this and look for it elsewhere as we travel around Japan.  And if we do see it again we will remember the guy in the small Sake making place in Hirado!

The Sake we bought

Hirado

Position 33d 22.28 m N 129d 33.30m E. We just arrived in Hirado.  Another town steeped in history so we will add another post as we do some exploring.  But we are tied up to an old ferry terminal which is complete with floating dock.  And though it is old it is better than the best thing Guam had to offer to boats.  The town looks pretty neat.  We can see a castle and an old church, a temple and a Dutch trading post just from our deck.  So I am sure we will be able to add more.  But so far we have been here two hours and had two visitors welcoming us.  Not bad!!!

The New Batteries are In

We have installed the new batteries.  Or more importantly we have removed the old ones.  The old ones were very badly deformed when we pulled them out.  We replaced 6 Trojan T105s with 2 CCB 12DD-200s.  This required rewiring the bank and eliminating loads of jumper wires.  We did lose some amp hours but we think the new solar panels will make up for it.  Anyway the boat electrics sure seem to be happier for it.  The flickering lights and jumping gauges have started working normal.  So we can only assume motors, pumps and instruments are enjoying the change as well.

This is what the new batteries look like.