The day dawned wet and crappy, and I put a toe out, and it
came back soaked, so even though I'd planned on joining the
crew on its field trip to Dazaifu, I decided to stay closer
to home and visit the city's most relevant (to me) landmark,
Raumen Stadium, one of whose attractions is that one can get
to it all under cover from the hotel; it's on the top floor
of the Canal City shopping center, so once one tumbles to
the fact that it's upstairs, it's easy enough to find.

It was hard to choose among the eight restaurants; we
decided on Menya Houten, which is said to have a Chinese
accent, because it offered stuff that lili would enjoy. As
I am both sight and insight impaired, I spent way too much
time puzzling over the meal ticket machine, during which I
managed to buy 3 beers and no food. Luckily, a young
employee with excellent English came up to help me buy a
bowl of Hakata black ramen; of course he recommended the
special with chashu, pork fat, kamaboko, a braised egg,
scallions, bamboo shoots, and nori, which turned out to be
a large, complex, satisfying bowl despite there being only
the standard 3 oz serving of meat. I'd expected from the
Hakata appellation that this would be a tonkotsu broth
varied with dark soy and burnt garlic oil; in fact, the
broth was a thinnish one though well endowed with the
expected blackeners. Very firm noodles, which I went through
in a jiffy and got our helpful friend to teach me how to buy
a second serving (used to be that seconds on noodles were
free, but no more) for Y150. The seconds were even more al
dente than the first. The chashu, excellent. Pork fat, Y50
extra if not on the special, is merely a ladleful of bits
that float on top of the broth: I like this a lot, many
people go eww. The braised egg was very like a Chinese soy
sauce egg, but the Japanese do these so that the whites are
set and broth-colored while the yolk is still a bit runny.
Very tender braised bamboo shoots. I could have done without
the seaweed.

For lili, fried chicken, crunchy, well flavored, excellent.

We had been given the option of having one of the beer
tickets refunded, as I was clearly an addled tourist who
didn't know any better, and the young man was a little
shocked when I said, no, we'll just drink more. The offering
is called Suntory Premium Malt's, a pleasant nondescript
lager of the sort that is taking over the world. The glasses
are I guess 10 or 11 ounces, and three for two pax is by no
means a stretch, even though I drank more than half. Okay,
more than three-fourths.

We resolved to come back later to try another stand. My next
choice was going to be the beef tongue place, or maybe the
kurobuta black pig place. But as it turns out, other
deliciousnesses obtruded and we didn't get to do so.

The sky had begun to lighten, so we figured on an afternoon
lull and started westward to the Fukuoka Castle ruins, I
forget what the area is called. lili had rain gear, and I
had a Ted jacket that looked waterproof but really wasn't,
but what the heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As soon
as we got to the point of no return, around the Tenjin
station, the heavens of course opened up, and it ended up a
bit of a slog with frequent ducks under awnings and pauses
for me to wipe my glasses; but we got there, and, yes, the
rain hadn't taken away all the cherry blossoms, and the park
was gorgeous. Note: for the less stubborn, there are plenty
of buses that one could take for a buck (most of our
adventure was within the Y100 zone).

There was more to see at the site, but it was getting lowery
again, and my wet jacket was beginning to get irritating,
and dinner was coming up, so back to the Hyatt.