Fukuoka

Getting to Fukuoka involved us having a huge day of travelling. We left Mt Fuji on the bus back to Tokyo which was easier and quicker than trying to get around Fuji to the nearest Shinkansen station. Once at Tokyo we had to race across town to pick up the Shinkansen (Bullet train) to Osaka where we changed to another train to Fukuoka. All in all it took us about eleven hours but when you consider the distances involved it would have taken about two days on British Rail. The Shinkansen is amazing, loads of legroom, reclining seats and fast is not the word. It is amazing to see a rail network that works. Going from one end of the country to the other and the train arrives on time to the minute!!

The journey gave us the opportunity to see some of Japan, we've never seen so many golf ranges without spotting so much as a single golf course! The route the Shinkansen takes is basically built up from Tokyo all the way to Osaka, but the mountains in the distance are lush and the leaves were in various stages of turning from green to yellow to red and brown.

It was stunning.

We stayed in a Japanese style Inn called a Ryokan in Fukuoka called Kashima Honken which was great. The building is really old and the room had tatami mat flooring and we were provided with Yakuta's to wear. There is a whole set of protocols to follow when staying in a ryokan and if you can get past the not wanting to offend anyone by doing anything insulting it's a great experience.

Fukuoka has a loop bus which costs just ￥100 (40p ish), worth doing just for a tour. Our main reason for coming here was the Sumo, but although it goes on all day it's not really worth going early unless you are a die hard enthusiast. We decided that we'd check out a bit more of Fukuoka first and visited a really pretty Japanese garden called Rakusuien Garden.

They had a pond with the obligatory huge carp swimming around. As soon as they saw us they all came to the suface searching out food.

After the garden we headed to a shopping and entertainment complex called Canal City. The place is vast. We found a restaurant which offered an all you can eat buffet, which to two hungry tourists is an invitation to abuse. We certainly got our money's worth, the problem is that our capacity for eating has diminshed because we've been cutting back so much.

After lunch and feeling huge we thought it would be a good time to see the really big guys at the sumo and get our bellies back in perspective. We were shown up to our seats and to our horrer we were sat next to a family we can only describe as mentally deficient.

They were the only people in the whole arena who were shouting and screaming. Right our ears!!!! There was no way we could've stayed there so we ducked out and found some spare seats on the other side of the satdium. From then on the Sumo was brilliant. They work their way up the rankings until they get to the big boys. The best fight of the day was between one of the western competitors called Baruto and a Japanese guy. In contrast to most bouts it lasted several minutes and concluded with Baruto winning to a huge round of applause. On the way out we got ourselves some nice Sumo memorabilia (Tea Cups) to remember it by.