11 Days in Chūgoku & Kyushu – Day 02 – Fukuoka – Walking Tour – Jōten-ji

Truth to tell, I was a little apprehensive of the walking tour scheduled for Day 02 mid-morning onward – and specifically because the first day weather was so humid I wasn’t looking forward to another day perspiring buckets in the hot sun again. Thankfully, the weather was significantly cooler on the second day – I reckon about several degrees lower in fact, with highs reaching about 28 degree celsius, and there was also a strong breeze throughout.

Even luckier was that I turned out to be the only guest on the walking tour too. My host was a middle-aged lady – probably in her early fifties – Miwako Okada, and she spoke pretty good English. We didn’t have any language problems when she shared the history of Fukuoka City, its origins as a port city, why the port quarter is well away from the Ohori Park and castle ruins (historically, the residences and merchants in between were intended to act as a buffer in case of invasion), each place’s significance and meaning. And our conversations went even into photography and Adobe Lightroom, on account that she was a Canon DSLR user.

The 2 hour 40 minutes walking tour covers a number of locations, and in this sequence: Hakata Station => Jotenji Temple => Tochoji Temple => Hakata Machiya Folk Museum => Kushida Shrine => Kawabata Shopping Avenue => Hakata Traditional Craft Center. There were limitations to photography in a couple of places too, but there were no issues with photo-taking in the exteriors of each place we visited.

Brief notes of Hakata Station: the station underwent a major refurbishment eight years ago, and there were plans underway for a grand celebration and ceremony for 12 March 2011. But the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the day before that far up north put a serious dampening of spirits also in the city. Miwako also gave a quick orientation of the Hakata City – the shopping mall that sits on top of the station – and especially where the restaurants for casual dining were. Something I’ll definitely check out soon!

The first stop: Jōten-ji, a Rinzai temple that was completed 850 years ago. It’s gone through several rounds of refurbishment, so doesn’t nearly look its age. There weren’t any other visitors to the temple grounds in the mid-morning.

The gate for commoners and normal people like us to go through.
The symbol of royalty is mounted on another fenced off gate. It apparently is only opened when the Japanese Emperor is entering the temple.
There wasn’t any ceremonies or rites going on at that time in the morning, providing a truly quiet and tranquil visit.
Reverse view of the gate for royalty, and it runs straight to the main hall. Everyone else has to use the lesser gate.
The main hall.
The overlapping shade from the trees and sunny day providing some really nice photos.
The temple with the zen garden is actually fenced off, but my host got permission for us to go inside for a look.

Summary: beautiful temple and worth a visit of around 30 minutes.

The walking tour continues in the next post!