Day 3 – Saturday 01/10/05


Awoke early and palmed through some car-hire brochures, wrote another note and had a wee walk. It was only about 6.30am yet was already warm. I hope the weather holds I thought to myself. Back at the breakfast table around 8am, I decided to check the internet this morning. Low and behold I had a private message on Flyertalk – Q Shoe Guy can meet us in Yanagawa – yesterday! Jeez I mused, the one day a year you don’t check your mail and ... Sent a mail and apology to Kyushu Guy (get it) and posted a couple of messages to AFF. Time to call the car-hire people.

I checked a few companies such as Orix & Nippon and decided on Japan rent-a-car (Japaren). They all had similar day-rates, though Japaren had an easy to find office (on Kokutai dori (street) ph: 092-752-3900) open 24 hours. This meant that the 6/12/24 hour rentals were meaningful, and we could return the car at our leisure.

In line with our new challenge of a cheap few days away, we booked the smallest car on offer. When we arrived about an hour later, we were offered to upgrade for about 400yen more. We declined, and were given the upgraded model anyway (a kinda cute cubish car called a Mocha, Latte or something). It was new and cheap, costing less than 6,000yen including all insurance, tax etc for 12 hours rental. The fuel for the day’s driving (guestimate 150-200kms) totaled 1,300yen, so all-in-all around 7,000yen. Great Value.

I showed them my Japanese drivers license and passport. Breaking the FF’s cardinal sin, I offered to pay by cash, not electing to use a mileage-affiliated credit card. Were you still dizzy, you ask? Well, I wanted to check something. You see I don’t hire cars in Japan often, and had heard one can do so card-less. Wishing to test this theory, I handed over the cash to the clerk and was offered the keys to the car. Wow I thought, how many places in the world can you hire a car without a credit card? Sure they had my license and passport numbers, but for me it represented trust in their customer (me). I vowed to look after their coffee car, and drove off towards the beach. PS: Don’t bother asking for a non-smoking car – this is Japan – and all cars were smoking, though no tobacco odor was evident in our vehicle.

We drove along the fish markets and headed out past Momochi to Marinoa, a yacht harbor come beach come outlet mall come amusement park. We stretched our legs on the sand, and witnessed a dramatic rescue of some people from the pier. The beach was closed to vehicles so the wet-suit clad firemen had to run about 400 meters to those distressed. A helicopter was buzzing overhead and sirens screaming in the fore & backgrounds.

We pushed off in our coffee cart and stopped next at the Fukuoka Yacht club. Some German brands in the carpark and nice boats in the harbor but nothing much else was happening round here (perfect weather for sailing though). Off again past Imajuku beach and through countryside reminding me of Bali. Some coastal views along our route yet the coastal road was mainly inland. We passed some small towns that screamed "we’re having a festival" with bright flags and stuff hanging from everywhere. Turned out they were having their school athletic carnivals, which apparently is a big deal in Nippon.

Continued for about an hour until we arrived at Keya beach*. Here they had magnificent rocks and a cave, though we didn’t explore either much . It was getting really warm now with the temperature hovering around 30 (degrees). So we dipped our toes in the water, jumped in the car and went looking for lunch and shade.

*This beautiful and tranquil place is also home to a reggae festival I believe.

We passed the Keya Golf Course and stopped at a convenience store for directions. The lovely young lass commented that Futamigaura Beach and the Sunset Café was just down the street. 15 minutes continuous driving later, we arrived at our destination noting that country people certainly perceive distance differently than city folk .

WOW. What a place! Futamigaura beach and the Sunset Café were breathtaking. It felt like we weren’t in Japan at all, rather in Thailand or somewhere. To start I ordered a banana juice (500yen - recommended) and the SO a Kir cocktail (700yen - not – too bitter, apparently). For food we settled for garlic toast (500yen?) as an appetizer, and jyaku chicken tortilla (800yen - recommended) and roast pork (800yen - not – too small). The jyaku chicken and banana juice were great while the other things were ok. But the views and ambience of the café were outstanding; certainly have plans to come back again.

If we were to come back with friends then we’d definitely go for the bbq plan (minimum 5 people booked at least 1 day before). We could arrive around 2pm and either have juice or coffee to start. Then we could take some snacks (or dessert or free hotel hamper) across the street and enjoy the water and beach. Then back to the café for the bbq dinner, drinks and sunset (the sunsets from here are reportedly phenomenal).

Sidenote: Parking is free for 2 hours if you buy something from the café. It certainly wasn’t monitored while we were there but perhaps could be in the busier summer months.

After lunch we crossed the road to the beach and enjoyed the beautiful clear water. It was now 33 degrees (and one of the hottest days in Kyushu’s history for October) and I was glad we were where we were. The water had great visibility and we could see schools of fish swimming around us. Wishing we had brought snorkeling gear, we started to notice divers up and down the sand. Mental note – bring gear next time @:-) .

It was about 2pm when we climbed once again in our wheels and headed back towards Fukuoka. We passed through Nishijin (and the city) and onto Route 3 with bearings towards Shikanoshima. We dropped into Uminonkamichi and had a brief look around the Marine Park (you can also catch a ferry from/to here from Bayside Place). The Marine Park looked impressive, though we didn’t venture inside. Onto Shikanoshima and out of the car to get some photos (from this spot you can see the whole Fukuoka skyline as you look back across the bay. If that’s not enough, there’s also a guy selling jumbo bbq oysters at a reasonable price ). Ate some oysters and drove past Kin-in Park and some Mongolian memorial (the Mongolians invented the term Kimikaze BTW), and on to the National Vacation Village beach. This again was a fantastic beach, man-made with soft clean sand. It was straddled by a cool coffee shop with swimming pool set right on the headland. It was 4.30pm and probably around 30 degrees and though tempted to swim we pushed on (we had the car until 10pm, yet were keen to get back to see some of the Asian Month festival near our hotel).

Back towards the city and time to drop off the hire-car. We wanted to see some dancing that finished at 6pm and it seemed we would probably just make it. After convincing my g/f that no we shouldn’t turn right (she was holding the map upside down), we dropped off our car without fuss. With City Hall a 10minute walk away we scampered off to catch the last of the dancing. Arriving at 5.40pm, it was still warm though finally starting to cool. We ordered some beer (Kirin - 300yen) and sat down to enjoy the dancing. Don’t know what the festival was for (Dontaku?), though consisted of several groups of 40+ dancers brightly decorated in matching garb, dancing in unison to bad music (well, not my taste anyway). Kinda of like a smaller version of the Sapporo Yosakoi festival. One beer was enough as the music was starting to grate – fun costumes though, and lots of parents and kids dancing together – ^ .

We picked up some cold ones & free magazines (displayed in front of the convenience store) & moseyed back to our room. It was time to shower away the sand and sore limbs. Changed into our Japanese yukatas, drank our 2 beers and discussed whether we had the energy to go out. We noticed in the local free magazine "Hot Pepper" that the Hyatt residential suites (ph: 092-846-8585) at Momochi was offering apartments for 10,080yen/ night, reduced from 15,750yen/ night. All rooms had a kitchen, and from the floor-map looked spacious. This special is valid until 31/10/05, and appears good value (If we’d seen this before, we’d have probably spent our last night there and extended our car-hire, though we had no regrets).

Checked the TV guide and Arnie & True Lies was on the box that night. Although not an Arnie fan, ordering take-away (no room service) and watching TV became more attractive as the night wore on. We were tired, and decided happily to spend our last night in the room.