{"id":29930,"date":"2019-09-17T06:55:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T22:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=29930"},"modified":"2026-03-14T19:49:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T11:49:51","slug":"11-days-in-chugoku-kyushu-day-02-fukuoka-walking-tour-joten-ji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/09\/17\/11-days-in-chugoku-kyushu-day-02-fukuoka-walking-tour-joten-ji\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Days in Ch\u016bgoku & Kyushu – Day 02 – Fukuoka – Walking Tour – J\u014dten-ji"},"content":{"rendered":"

Truth to tell, I was a little apprehensive about the walking tour scheduled for Day 02 from mid-morning onward \u2014 specifically because the first day’s weather was so humid that 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 it was several degrees lower in fact, with highs reaching about 28 degrees Celsius, and there was also a strong breeze throughout.<\/p>\n

Even luckier was that I turned out to be the only guest on the walking tour. My host was a middle-aged lady \u2014 probably in her early fifties \u2014 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 Ohori Park and the castle ruins (historically, the residences and merchants in between were intended to act as a buffer in case of invasion), and each place’s significance and meaning. Our conversations even wandered into photography and Adobe Lightroom, on account that she was a Canon DSLR user.<\/p>\n

The 2 hour 40 minute walking tour covers a number of locations, 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 on the exteriors of each place we visited.<\/p>\n

Brief notes on Hakata Station: the station underwent a major refurbishment eight years ago, and there were plans underway for a grand celebration and ceremony on 12 March 2011. But the devastating T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami<\/a> the day before that far up north put a serious dampening of spirits in the city as well. Miwako also gave a quick orientation of Hakata City \u2014 the shopping mall that sits on top of the station \u2014 and especially where the restaurants for casual dining were. Something I’ll definitely check out soon!<\/p>\n

The first stop: J\u014dten-ji<\/strong>, a Rinzai temple that was completed 850 years ago. It’s gone through several rounds of refurbishment, so it doesn’t nearly look its age. There weren’t any other visitors on the temple grounds in the mid-morning.<\/p>\n

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

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Summary<\/strong>: Beautiful temple and worth a visit of around 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

The walking tour continues in the next post<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Truth to tell, I was a little apprehensive about the walking tour scheduled for Day 02 from mid-morning onward \u2014 specifically because the first day’s weather was so humid that I wasn’t looking forward to another day perspiring buckets in<\/p>\n

Read More 11 Days in Ch\u016bgoku & Kyushu – Day 02 – Fukuoka – Walking Tour – J\u014dten-ji<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[661,608,613],"class_list":["post-29930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-chugoku-kyushu-japan-2019","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-sony-fe-24-105mm-f4-0","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/blog-2019-japan-chugoku-kyushu-day-02-A7_07206-fukuoka-walking-tour.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38502,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29930\/revisions\/38502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}