This is Why Japan is One of My Favorite Countries

This is Why Japan is One of My Favorite Countries

Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey there. Good afternoon. How’s it going? Today is Thursday, November 20th, 2025. Currently 59° F. That is 15° C. So, uh this is Fukuoka. on Kyushu Island, the southernmost of the three main large islands of uh Japan. And my first time here, arrived yesterday, direct flight from Soul, South Korea. And then I walked around uh this same neighborhood and showed the uh street food stalls. So that neighborhood in there might be a red light district. I’m not exactly sure, but something along those lines. Uh it was, you know, more lit up and everything uh last night. So, here is where the uh little uh food trucks were, but they’re completely gone now. And so, I think that I saw the food trucks a few blocks away just a couple of minutes ago when I was walking over here because there were food trucks all, you know, closed up and everything. So, uh they take them down during the day, I guess. And then here you have either a river or one of the canals or something. looks a lot deeper here. Right where I started the video, it’s literally only like a foot or two uh deep, but uh this looks like more of a for real river. So, uh I just wanted to uh come back here and see it in the daytime. It is such a perfect pleasant day now. Sunny, coolish, but uh still fairly uh warm. So you can do a riverboat cruise. So there is an issue with my Japan adventure plans which is the accommodation situation. So as I showed at the beginning there I am staying at a hostel. Great price for a hostel. I don’t stay at host very often anymore, but uh room prices are really freaking expensive here in uh Japan. I don’t remember them being quite so expensive the last time that I was here about 3 years ago. As I’ve mentioned in previous videos already than uh South Korea is so much more reasonable with the prices, 50% or less. So when I was looking on Booking.com and also Airbnb and Dakota.com for uh rooms to stay here in Fukuoka, then I was not finding hardly anything affordable. I would have been happy to have paid $70 US for a decent uh private room in the central area, but I was not finding that at all. I found one room that was 70 bucks that was a few miles outside of the uh center on a Airbnb and it was, you know, very small and that would have been fine. I don’t really care if it’s small or not, but it was partly just the uh location. And then when I found this hostel for $18 a night, I was like, well, 70 bucks for a little room outside of the center or $18 and do the hostel thing to be right in the middle of things. Decided to go with that, but just for two nights. So, last night and tonight. And so, I now have to figure out what I’m doing tomorrow. And I was looking again on uh Booking.com and it’s even worse. There’s almost nothing available for less than like $150 a night because tomorrow is Friday. And so even the uh hostel the uh price for the bunk bed doubles almost tomorrow to like $33 and then Saturday night it goes up again to like 62 bucks for the exact same uh bunk bed. And so I was also checking in Nagasaki, which is a couple of hours away from here and sounds like a really nice city as well that I’d like to see. Obviously, one of the uh cities bombed in uh World War II and not just bombed, but nuked literally. But it’s supposed to be a really nice uh city now. But also there same issues. So, I don’t know how things are going to go with this uh Japan trip. I mean, I’m fine with spending more for a few nights or whatever, but I just can’t afford to be spending a 100 bucks a night for very long. So, anyways, that is the uh situation and I will figure it out one way or another. So, uh, for now it is time to see more of this, uh, very, uh, pleasant, interesting, bustling city. I love the, uh, old style taxis. See, two totally different styles. I love how they aren’t uniform. How there’s lots of different kinds. And most of them are an older uh, style. I don’t know. Maybe those ones are actually newer, just they’re kind of unique. Okay, here’s some definite more uh modern ones. Anyways, uh I got a few places in mind to uh visit for today as uh destinations to shoot for and other than that, it’s just a matter of let’s uh see what we see. Fukuoka, amazing Japan. Absolutely one of my favorite countries and taking pictures. So, here is one of the much shallower canals. Yeah, it looks only about a foot deep. And up ahead is a Shinto shrine. I will explain what that means when we get there. So, it should be right down here and up ahead. Looks like that might be a covered market. This is one of the things that I love about Japan. And here is the shrine is how it isn’t just big wide streets and big buildings. Certainly that is what you see when you see like the skyline of the cities is these big modern skyscrapers. But in between the skyscrapers, then you have these really cute neighborhoods and streets and lanes with these, you know, little shops and stalls and hole-in-the-wall places and various restaurants and things with character. And so despite being an ultraodderern high-tech futuristic country, probably the most modernized country in the world, I think that it’s safe to say, but they haven’t lost the idea of kind of the spirit, the soul of the culture. And so there’s just tons and tons of uh character as you explore around the uh cities. Just so much to see and different areas being very different. So uh the shrine is around the corner there. But wanted to check this out. So this is all just a complete surprise. It’s a trip. How for one thing they have all these red and blue flags up. Is that like a uh you know holiday festival ceremony kind of a thing or is it just always here? And then I love these little restaurants. So lots of tempura there looks like. And then uh fresh fruits and veggies. shoes. Speaking of shoes, these ones are working out. I’m glad. I wasn’t sure at first because they were a little bit tight, but uh yeah, super comfy. Awesome. Uh look to them. 43 or 44 bucks, I think, US. So, uh not cheap, but uh seem like good quality. Nice selection of uh shirts and jackets there. No thoroughare. Pedestrians only, no bicycle. So, as you can see, it just kind of keeps on going here. Wow, it goes a ways. Now, I’m sort of thinking that I should have seen the shrine first and then continue my walking that way, which I think is what I’m going to do. head back, show the shrine, and then head that way in the direction of wherever I’m going to go next. And so up ahead is the shrine, which dates to the 8th century AD. I assume that doesn’t mean the structure currently is that old, but uh probably rebuilt a number of times. So, here’s a little bit about Shintoism from uh Wikipedia. Shinto, also called Shintoism is a religion originating in Japan. classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion. It is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan’s indigenous religion and as a nature religion with no unifying doctrine or central authority. In control of Shinto, there is much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners, a polytheistic and animistic religion. Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the kami. The kami are believed to inhabit all things including forces of nature, prominent landscape, locations, and even notable historical figures. The kami are worshiped at Kamidana household shrines and ginga public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests known as konushi who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enan shrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter’s blessing. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rights of passage, and kami festivals. Is that So, as you can see, that uh building certainly does not look 1,200 years old, but uh believe that there was some sort of a shrine here for that long. So, I guess this is where you would do a uh cleansing ritual. Clean your hands. Oo, nice uh carvings. Beautiful building here. I love the style with the wood. This is an older looking building it seems like, than the other one. Hakkata Oldtown. Okay. Wow. So, I’m guessing that is the zodiac. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. Yep. So cow, rat, pig or boar, dog, chicken and rooster, monkey, goat, horse, snake, dragon, rabbit, tiger. And so the description of Shintoism called it the indigenous religion of Japan as opposed to Buddhism. Zen Buddhism is also prominent in Japan. All right. Well, that was more interesting of a shrine experience than I had expected. So, let’s continue the uh exploring. Go walk down that long walkway and see what’s at the other end. So, this is a doughut shop, Olga Lee Bon Bon Donuts. Very cute. Happy Merry Christmas. Ho ho ho. Oh wow, look at these donuts. Oh man, some tasty looking and strange ones. A three-eyed donut green monster. Kira gobo. That looks like more than a donut. Smoked chicken and carrot tape. tomato chicken curry, flying fish, dashi omelette, milk chocolate, white chocolate. So I guess these are the savory ones and then the rest are all sweet. Double strawberry chocolate. Oh man, those look tasty. And then another uh cute lane on the way down to the uh shopping street. Okay. What is that? I guess uh Katsu curry. The brown curry dish. Mango roll. It’s like a mango mountain. Ichigo Azuki, Strawberry, Matcha, and Pudding Roll. And look at this place. What’s going on here? Kento Cafe. So, I guess they’d be cooking it up uh outside in the evenings. A nice looking plate of noodles there. Hakata city. So, that is Fukuoka. And it keeps going. Where is the end of it? Sukiyaki Japanese beef. Japanese food is so varied. It is so much more than just sushi. Look at this. They have like a shrine inside the restaurant. Looks like it can be moved, picked up and moved. Some crazy looking drinks. Whoa. Oh, not drinks. Ice cream. Caramel. Coffee. Jelly. Rice flour. Churros. Mont Blanc. Matcha. Soybean flour. Guaboi. And then some smoothies. Berry, white peach, banana, mango. And it keeps going. And it looks like we finally come to the end of it. Time to check my phone and see where I’m going next. So, uh the canals are definitely a uh unique uh feature of the city. I saw a really interesting video. I was already thinking of coming to Fukuoka and then I saw this uh video on Facebook or something just randomly, but it was filmed here in Fukuoka and uh there’s a little tourist boat going along one of the canals. It’s very low and then a boat driver standing on the back with a long stick and so it comes to a bridge and the bridge is really really low like if that’s the water the ground then it’s like here or something and so all the people sitting in the boat tourists have to duck for it to go under the bridge but the boat driver does not uh try to crouch down or whatever. He’s standing on the back of the boat. And so, let’s say this is a bridge, but a much lower one. It comes along, the boat starts to go under the bridge. All the people have ducked, and then the boat driver is still standing, and then there’s like a little step, and he steps off the boat onto the side of the bridge, and then up onto the bridge. And then he casually, like really casually walks like across there’s a street there with traffic, but a narrow street. So I guess he knows reliably he can do it. And so he walks across the street to the other side of the bridge and then steps down and the boat is starting to uh come out the other side. And then you think, well, okay, he’s just going to uh climb down and then get on the back of the boat. But he doesn’t. And so you’re starting to think, oh no, looks like he’s going to miss it. But instead, what he does is he waits for the boat to go out a little bit further. And then he takes his stick and puts it down in the water. And obviously it is very shallow. And so he puts the stick in the water a little ways out and then jumps out on the stick with the stick in the water and then lands on the back of the boat like 10 or 12 ft, you know, away from the bridge or something like that. And so it was very uh masterfully done. So, I’d love to find, you know, wherever that might be because the neighborhood looked really cool of uh smaller canals, but uh no idea where that might have been. So, here you have one of these classic Japanese intersections in which the entire thing gets blocked off from traffic all at the same time. And so, you can go there, there, there, there, or straight across. All right, time for me to uh check my phone, figure out where I’m going next. Hey. Okay, so this is the Tenin area of the city and this should be the Tenin Underground Mall. It is also the uh subway station there. I’m assuming that must be referring to the underground mall. So, uh, let’s give it a try. Life quality. And while I wander through here, I’m going to tell a story from uh South Korea that I didn’t include in a uh video previously because I wasn’t uh filming that day. Okay. What’s going on down here? Where is that? I’m assuming Europe somewhere. Italy or Spain. Oh, I think that is the Venetian symbol there. The winged lion. Probably Italy. Okay. Yeah, this is a proper underground mall. Whoa. Oh my god, it’s huge, mongus. Which way to go? Whoa, this is massive. Holy moly. All right, so the story, while I try to make up my mind, let’s go the long way. And then they have these very European middle ages looking uh images stained glass. So, this story is about paying to go from Danyang, the uh little town in the mountains in central South Korea, where I took a bus up to the uh lookout point looking out at the uh river and the town. And so the next day, as I mentioned at the end of the video, I had a train booked from there to Seoul, of course, the capital and largest city of South Korea. But as it turned out, I ended up paying for that route three different times. And so I’m going to explain how that turned out. So, as I showed when I was up on that lookout point, I could see the town. I could also see the train station. So, the train station was a couple of miles away from the town. I had uh booked a train when I arrived for 11 in the morning on the day after I filmed that video. Check out at my hotel was 11:00. And so I would need to get a taxi or whatever a little bit earlier, 10:30 or something like that, over to the train station. So as I was walking back and almost got back to my uh room, literally across the street from my room was the bus station. And so I walked in there to see about buses to Seoul. And sure enough, they were going every couple hours and there was one at 11:30 and so I decided to uh book the bus even though I prefer the train. So, the plan is just to get lost in here and we’ll see where I end up eventually. Look at this classic London telephone booth. Open. Ooh, there is in fact a dial tone. It seems to work. So, uh, I decide to buy a bus ticket and change plans and take the bus because it’s going to be so much more convenient. Check out at 11:00, walk across the street, and catch the bus coming at 11:30 instead of having to uh get going earlier and figure out a taxi. I think it was a Sunday. It was just more complicated and neither of the tickets were expensive. So, it was a matter of like 10 bucks or something. So, you know, I’m going to spend something on the taxi anyways getting over there. So, decided to uh skip the train, take the bus. So, next morning I uh get all packed up, get out to the bus station, and bus is there. It leaves right on time, 11:30. It’s a small bus. And there’s one little issue, which is there’s no bathroom on the bus. There weren’t on any of the buses that I took in uh South Korea. Even the bigger buses didn’t have bathrooms on it. And I’ve been drinking my Tulsi tea in the morning. A big cup of Tulsi tea. and then maybe a little juice or whatever as well. And so I’m a little concerned. It’s a two and a half hour journey. And so when I get on the bus, I’m a little concerned thinking, huh, I wonder if we’re going to make a stop or it’s just a couple hours straight. No stops, no bathroom breaks. Okay, so that’s just going to go back down uh the way I came. Let’s go check out these uh other stained glass things. So, I’m sort of considering whether I might have any other possible options. I look on the map and there’s a major city between where we are and Soul that we will have to go right through. And so, I’m thinking, you know what? We’re probably going to make a stop there. maybe a bathroom stop, but anyways, at least to drop people off, pick other people up. And so I’m thinking, well, if there’s a train station there, maybe I’ll actually switch and get back on a train. Love these uh stained glass images. Oh, wow. A bunch more. just because I prefer the train and then I can use the bathroom. So, I decide to look on my phone and see if there might be any way to book a train sitting there on the bus on my phone because what I don’t want is to get off the bus, get to the train station, and then discover maybe there isn’t a train to Soul for a couple hours or something. And so, I look on my phone, and sure enough, I can book a uh train ticket on my phone. using trip.com and it’s really cheap cuz we’re closer. It’s like half the way to soul at that point. So I forget how much it was but maybe $8 or $9 or something. Okay, looks like we’re coming out. And so I reserve a train and have a specific seat so that it’s definitely fully reserved. And so we approach uh this city, but I don’t know where the bus terminal is going to be relative to the train station. But I have enough time that if I need to catch a taxi from the bus terminal to the train station, then I should be fine. And so we come into the city and I have uh on maps where the train station is. And so we’re cruising along on a freeway and we keep cruising and cruising and cruising and we pass the train station and we just keep on going and the bus never stops in that city even though it’s a big city, skyscrapers and stuff. Okay. Are the bikes locked? Yep, they are. And so, as it turned out, the bus never stopped anywhere. It was a straight shot all the way to Seoul. And I survived even without the bathroom. But I paid for three different tickets. two train and a bus ticket altogether. It all added up to maybe like $25 or something. So, not a big deal, but uh just the way it worked out. All right. Well, that might be it for today. There is of course lots to see, but uh for one thing, I need to get my plans figured out for tomorrow, as well as get back to the hostel, edit this video, and then go out later, find some uh food. I will definitely get something more interesting than fish and chips like I had last night. So, uh yeah, let’s uh walk back to uh my uh hostel and I’m sure we’ll see something interesting along the way. Okay, change of plan. My hostel is a mile away. Instead, I’m going to go back down underground and uh try to figure out the metro here. All right, here we go. Let’s try to figure this out. English all. Here we go. Let’s see if this works. So far so good. Okay. Now what? I guess down here. All right. Supposedly this one. Tenjin. That’s where I need to go. So yes, change Hakata. So, it’s okay. So big. Oh yeah. No. Heat. Heat. for me.

A fun day of exploring the fascinating city of Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan.
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Music during the video (in order):

“Jet Stream” by Jones Meadow
&
“Ngoni” by The Mini Vandals featuring Mamadou Koita & Lasso
&
“Tasukete” by Calm Shores
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“State of Zen” by Mandala Dreams
&
“Through the Static” by Keppel Skies

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Video created by Gabriel Morris, who is the owner of all video or photo content. Filmed with a DJI Osmo Action.

Gabriel is a budget traveler, outdoors enthusiast and travel writer who has been adventuring around the world since his first trip to Europe in the summer of 1990 when he was 18 years old. He is author of “Following My Thumb”, “Gabe’s Guide to Budget Travel” and several other books.

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