{"id":30038,"date":"2019-09-17T19:15:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T11:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=30038"},"modified":"2026-03-14T19:47:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T11:47:49","slug":"11-days-in-chugoku-kyushu-day-02-fukuoka-sunset-at-fukuoka-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/09\/17\/11-days-in-chugoku-kyushu-day-02-fukuoka-sunset-at-fukuoka-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Days in Ch\u016bgoku & Kyushu – Day 02 – Fukuoka – Sunset at Fukuoka Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"

The walking tour finished at the Hakata Traditional Craft Museum, after which I made my way back to Canal City for lunch @ Ichiran Ramen<\/a> \u2014 on Miwako’s recommendation in fact. I’ve not heard of this ramen chain before this. Coincidentally though, it was just announced in the news back at home that this famous ramen chain is also setting up in Singapore too.<\/p>\n

Post-lunch, I decided to bring forward the activities on Day 9 to the afternoon to maximize usage of the wonderful weather. But it was 2:40PM by the time I walked back to Hakata Station. Given that it’d take another 50 minutes to get to Uminonakamichi Station \u2014 where Marine World and Uminonakamichi Seaside Park are \u2014 leaving just 2.5 hours to cover both places, I dropped that idea and headed back to the hotel to process the several hundred pictures taken during the walking tour. That was just as well, as there were some emergent work stuff to sort out in the mid-afternoon. After that got cleared up, I was again left thinking what to do for the Day 02 evening \u2014 and thus decided to check out Fukuoka Tower<\/strong>, and specifically the sunset that one should be able to observe given that one side of the tower faces west.<\/p>\n

Getting to the tower required a bit of walking, especially since I was taking the subway. Specifically, take the Kuko Line train from Hakata Station to Nishijin Station, and from there, it’s a 30-minute walk \u2014 half of it through very quiet suburbs, then past swanky-looking modern apartment blocks, and finally through Momochi Central Park with its wide boulevard.<\/p>\n

Fukuoka Tower is a pretty modern-looking skyscraper though it isn’t quite the mammoth monster like Taipei 101 \u2014 as in it’s not nearly as tall at just 234 meters compared to the latter’s 509.2 meters, not nearly as wide on the floors, and there’s no shopping mall that sits beneath it. The skyscraper’s triangular shape means that the observation deck has three sides, each providing very different views: one of the sea, one of the Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk hotel, and the last facing the west and also suburbs in the Imazu (I think) area and beyond. The admission fee is a modest \u00a5800, and aside from access to the observation deck, you also get a free small tacky-looking photo of yourself superimposed against a digital backdrop, with options to get a larger print or digital download.<\/p>\n

The most important bit though: the views are magnificent, though also very different from Taipei \u2014 e.g. there are far fewer skyscrapers in Fukuoka, and the urban sprawl is also smaller than Taipei’s. The sunset view was incredible and unobstructed \u2014 though the cloud layer on Day 02 made the resulting pictures less spectacular than they might have been. I took the opportunity also to take two time-lapse videos using the DJI Osmo Pocket too. Lenses used included the Sony FE 24\u2013105mm f4 when there was still sufficient light, and the Sony FE 28mm f2.0 for the evening photos.<\/p>\n

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As you walk past Momochi Central Park, the tower gradually becomes visible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Fukuoka Tower didn’t give me the same mild sense of fear and apprehension that Taipei 101 did. It’s basically far more modest in size and thus less scary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Look upwards while in the lift, and you’d get treated to a good look at the interior superstructure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sunset on Fukuoka city.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View of the city at about sunset.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Marizon, apparently a popular wedding venue. It sure looks the part, at least when observed from the tower.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Early evening and golden hour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Hilton Fukuoka Seahawk Hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Swanky-looking condo on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Not quite the hulking monster that’s Taipei 101, but the views from up top are no less spectacular.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Summary<\/strong>: highly recommended, especially considering the fairly low admission price of \u00a5800\/SGD10. If you’re attempting sunset pictures, you’d want to set aside at least an hour to capture both the daylight and also the golden hour photos. Quite a bit of a walk from the Nishijin subway stop though.<\/p>\n

That concludes Day 02 activities. The next days saw my traveling to Tokuyama for the work event, and some observations are noted in the next post here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The walking tour finished at the Hakata Traditional Craft Museum, after which I made my way back to Canal City for lunch @ Ichiran Ramen \u2014 on Miwako’s recommendation in fact. I’ve not heard of this ramen chain before this.<\/p>\n

Read More 11 Days in Ch\u016bgoku & Kyushu – Day 02 – Fukuoka – Sunset at Fukuoka Tower<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[661,658,608,613,659],"class_list":["post-30038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-chugoku-kyushu-japan-2019","tag-oppo-reno-10x-zoom","tag-sony-a7-iii","tag-sony-fe-24-105mm-f4-0","tag-sony-fe-28mm-f2","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_07548-fukuoka-tower.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30038","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=30038"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38498,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30038\/revisions\/38498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}