Wandering around In Fukuoka

Having only a matter of hours to spend in the city, I hit the ground running!…after the plane’s fasten seatbelt sign turned off, of course! Before leaving the airport, I asked for directions on how to get around, grabbed a tourist’s guide map and headed out to get into the city. I also purchased one of my favorite soft drinks that one can’t find just anywhere in America—or Korea, for that matter!

C.C. Lemon. “Filled with 70 lemons worth of Vitamin C in every bottle!”

And you've gotta love the reversed, driving on the left side of the road. (In Korea, we drive on the right side of the road). I was on the bus between the international and domestic terminals here.

Getting off the Subway, I started off in the Hakata district of Fukuoka. I tried to follow a path of sightseeing places in the area (prescribed by the map I grabbed), to hit up a lot of places, but instead I promptly got lost.

I did find a few shrines and temples along the way, but not the one I was looking for to start my “guided tour”. The buildings were still beautiful pieces of artwork. “The smell of incense burning fills the air.”

It's sad to see so many temples and so few churches here--So many lost people. (in Korea, the light of the Gospel is all over the place—churches are everywhere! But here, I didn’t see any churches—granted, I wasn’t looking very hard... It'd be good to pray that more people preach and spread the gospel here in Japan. Well hey, Korea still needs more of it too! And so does America! Let us pray for "more workers for the harvest," as the Lord says.)

I kept getting lost until I asked somebody for directions, and I directed my steps towards Tenjin, another area of the city. This apparently is one of the popular shopping districts of the city.

Here’s a nice plaza/park almost surrounded entirely by buildings in Tenjin. I talked with a basketball player from Senegal named Sarr here, the conversation with whom began with an unexpected, “Whatsup?”

One thing I realized at this point is how different Japanese people look from each other. As a foreigner, it’s easy at first glance to think they all look the same. But here I was starting to see the differences.

Getting lost can be fun sometimes when you want to explore, adventure, and find new places. Which I did. But not so much when you’re trying to find a particular place in a limited time. Which I was. Frustrated at not being able to get to where I wanted to be, being all by myself, surrounded by strangers and losing time, it’s not at all difficult to get discouraged and depressed. Which I did. Especially so in such a spiritually dark place.

But, praise God, Jesus says He never leaves us, nor forsakes us. It’s great to realize that God is with you in all the ups and especially in all the downs of this life. So I cast my cares upon Him who bears, and let His joy uplift me, giving thanks and singing praise, He changed defeat to vict’ry. It’s great to sing songs to God in your heart. I’ve also been learning as of late how important it is to give thanks! Turning to Him totally changed the whole day, and my whole attitude. He lifted the burden and filled me with joy!

Finally getting my bearings and heading to the correct subway, I headed to Ohori Park, to see what I could see. It was already getting dark, as you can (or cannot) see, so I didn’t see much besides the skyline, including what I believe to be Fukuoka tower.

I was looking around for the remains of Fukuoka Castle, rumored to be hidden nearby (so my guide map indicated), so I stopped a guy carrying boxes and asked him where it was. Hence, this is my friend Torushige Ota, who, with the help of an old man, directed me to the castle site (Fukuoka-jo, I think). It was many conversations I had like with this guy that I really enjoyed as part of my experience this day. Seeing places (whether or not things were visible) was neat, but I really loved talking with people in Japanese. It was quite the memory exercise trying to recall words and phrases I had learned, since I’ve been so out of practice since leaving the country.

For example, check out this couple I met on the bus back to the airport, Te Young and Na Young:

I found out that they were actually Koreans, one of which was heading to Seoul that evening. The hilarious thing was that our conversation bounced back and forth between Korean (of which I knew only a little bit), English (of which they knew only a little bit), and Japanese (of which we both knew a more decent amount—theirs was much more decent than mine, though!). So funny to talk with them!

Stuff like this enforced the math that

places= +

and

people>places

Places are awesome. People are more important than places.

All in all, it was a good trip, but totally short-lived. I learned some lessons here, and saw a few things and met a few people. I may have to come back again with more time and do more. Like eat Hakata Ramen. If not, oh well! Let’s give thanks for what we have been given!

Trip To Fukuoka—Another Metropolitan City

  On Monday, the 5th, I headed out to Fukuoka, Japan to stay for a day, because I had to leave the country for a bit because of my visa. It’s too bad I only got to spend part of a day there, but it I was very excited to visit nonetheless. I hadn’t  really seen the mainland of Japan outside of the Narita airport, so I was very curious to see what a mainland city was like. I was also excited to talk with people in Japanese again.

Fukuoka is a large city in southwestern Japan, on the island of Kyushu. Its population is about one and a half times that of Daejeon, reaching up to about 2.2 million people. I’d call it another metropolitan city.

It was a fun little adventure for a day. Having a working camera once again, I went trigger happy with the camera this day. For the most part, I enjoyed exploring, but the real fun was in talking to different sorts of people I met.

Chuseok Holiday—An Incredibly Beautiful Day

Chuseok. The biggest holiday in Korea, I believe. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but Koreans tell me it’s sort of like their version of Thanksgiving. For Chuseok, Everybody goes to their hometown and visits their families for the three days off that pretty much everyone gets off. (Too bad this year’s fell on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!) Because everybody decides to travel home, highway traffic in South Korea is hectic, and packed during this weekend. I didn’t leave Daejeon this weekend. But I bet half of Daejeon left Daejeon! (Imagine half of Seoul leaving Seoul!)

I predicted it, and I was right. It was an incredibly clear and beautiful weekend in Daejeon! Since tons of people were heading out of town, and pretty much most of the industry shut down, there was no smog at all in Daejeon. Compare the pics of a typical (this one’s actually a bad day) day and Chuseok.

These pictures are both at approximately the same time of day (in the later morning), and at the same place. What a difference!

Also notice in the second picture (above), all the cars on the left, bumper to bumper to get onto the expressway, whereas a normal street over on the right is empty.

Still not convinced?! “What is he trying to convince me of?” you ask? That’s besides the point!

That’s usually a busy intersection, with cars bustling and people walking. Not today.

For the Holiday on Friday, after going to the zoo, we went to Pastor Mike’s parent’s-in-law to hang out and eat! On Saturday, we went to the house of a family from our church and did the same thing! And on Sunday, we had church and especially gave thanks to the Lord for all of His goodness towards us (obviously it wasn’t the only time we were giving thanks, haha)! It’s so important to simply remember that God is good! No matter what sorts of things happen. He isn’t an evil God. He’s good, just, and loving, and has some purpose or plan in all things.

Here’s some of the fun time we had eating lunch on Sunday that weekend.

Going To Daejeon Zoo

 

For the weekend of Chuseok, the national Korean Holiday of Thanksgiving, we went to the zoo on our first day off (of three days). It was a pretty sweet place! Granted, I’m used to seeing zoos that are a bit larger (anyone try the Santa Barbara or San Diego Zoo?), but it’s still real great to enjoy watching live animals in any country. God’s creations are amazing. Seems you could watch these animals all day!

There’s little Jeena in the front…it’s Pastor Mike’s daughter! She’s the cutest little girl, but apparently only her parents have the power to cause her to smile for pictures!

In case you’re getting confused, Pastor Mike is the one with the hat and the glasses. Canadian Mike is standing next to him.

 

Danger! Wha-What’s that? That’s a blackbacked jackal, Jackal! This one’s for you! He looks intense, doesn’t he?

Mike is staring down the crocodiles with his gaze…They can’t but flee.

Fellowship At Dankook University!

Last week we started going to Dankook University in beautiful outskirts of Cheonan city to meet with some Korean students to fellowship and talk English. We join with an on-campus Christian club called UBF, or University Bible Fellowship.

Now, we were told beforehand that we'd just have some time of fellowship with these other Christians here, and chat and hang out for a bit, but not have an English class. However, one Korean pastor who seemed to help run it seemed to be giving me some packet of paper with English learning stuff on it, and I believe he said "study" a couple times as he was explaining it. I also couldn't help but notice that a few people would casually refer to our meeting time as "class". Heheh. So is it fellowship time or English class? Perhaps a little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B, as my good friend Casey likes to say.

It seems, though, that we've decided to forgo the aforesaid English packet and have more free-talking. That'll be nicer, I think. More like fellowship. Yet still good English practice. See, as native English speakers who don't know Korean, it's much easier to practice conversation than to teach things like grammar if the person doesn't have a good English base.

I look forward to being able to get to know these students at Dankook University. Not all those who come to things like this are born again believers in Christ, so it's a good opportunity to share the light of Christ with them, and hook them up with Korean Christian friends (especially if their English isn't that great). Sweet stuff!