A Mecha Fan Goes to Japan (2025), Part 1: Fukuoka
What is up everybody? I just came back from a trip to Japan. We touched down in Fukuoka October 12, 2025 in the afternoon. So this leg of the trip, which is in Fukuoka. I was there with my parents and my brother. though, not as much footage here compared to the second leg, which I will get to later because a lot of it is private footage with my family in it. So, uh, I don’t want to put my family out there on the internet, and I’m sure you won’t be interested in something like that. Like I mentioned, we were there until the morning of the 18th. At that point, my folks flew home while my brother and I boarded a Shinkansen straight to Tokyo. But for this part, we’ll be dealing with the Fukuoka leg. Let’s go. So, we arrived in the afternoon and for the first night, we wanted to go to a yatai near uh the Canal City Mall. For those who don’t know, a yatai is a sort of street stall. They come in at night and they leave again, so the streets are clean for the day. But the yaties were all full. Lots of tourists. But we found a nearby area with a lot of food trucks and we spent a bit of time there. Afterwards, parents went home cuz they were tired. But me and my brother went to a bar he went to in a previous trip to Fukquoka. Had a couple of drinks there called Bar Loop. Very nice selection. And afterwards we went to a anime song karaoke bar sort of thing. Yeah. Anisong bar. Had some drinks, sang a couple of tunes, and you know, it was my first time in something like that in spite of being an anime fan for a long time. But yeah, it was fun. One of the highlights for the evening for me was there was this white dude who was freaking killing it. he queued up and belted out the devil man theme and the Sakura Taisen theme. So much respect to him. But on my end, you know, I also put myself out there. I sang well tried well I tried to sing the best I could Hono no sadame the opening theme from VOMS and Beyond the Time from Chars Counter Attack. And for our first whole day in Fukuoka, we journey an hour and a half to Kitakushu to the Kitakushu outlets, which is a big ass outlet facility. And we’re here to do some shopping. If you haven’t ever been to Japan, the selections they have on even familiar brands like international brands such as Nike, Adidas, etc., The selection is just awesome. And you also have a lot of local brands, too, which you’ll probably never see uh when you go home. So, it’s nice to go to these places and shop. So, first of all, it’s already outlet prices, meaning it’s cheaper than usual than when you go to say a mall in the big cities. But there are also additional discounts or promos to be had in these outlets. Like in one of the shops I went to, uh the Edwin brand, a Japanese clothing brand, their pants were already discounted, but if you buy two, you get an additional 20% discount. So stuff like that. Outlets have a downside though in that sizes and available stock are a bit more limited due to the fact that the brands send these goods to the outlets. So to finish up the stock basically. So if you see something you like, say a shirt or a pair of shoes, there might not be a size that’s uh perfect for you. I was personally looking for some pants, uh some short sleeved polo shirts, some some short sleeved polos, and uh jackets if I could manage to find any for a good price. And I guess I can say partially mission accomplished. I was able to buy a few pieces of each. Not too many, but enough for me to feel satisfied with the haul. I guess this was because we’re coming up on winter in Japan already. So, most of the available clothes were of the long sleeved variety and was looking for short sleeved polos and polo shirts. And I didn’t find much of either. And this will be a recurring theme even until the second leg of this vacation. And luckily our schedule also matched up for a week of additional special discounts. So that was quite lucky. And lastly, here we are at a pet store because we wanted to buy something for our lonely dog who was left at a dog hotel here back home. Yeah, he’s cute, ain’t he? And with our outlet shopping done, we went back to Fukuoka to have some dinner at Hakata Tempura Nagaoka. It was a very good restaurant and we ordered the omacas course. First off was Menntico and Egg. Next one was a seabbream sashimi with some sort of sauce. I don’t know. Hard to see underneath all the seaweed. Then afterward was a potato salad with egg and truffle uh sliced truffles, I guess. And the highlight of the evening was the Wagyu beef tempura. My favorite of the evening. And then it was mushroom tempura. I’m not sure if this was shiitake or some other type. And then a sweet potato tempura. Their vegetables are really, really good. That’s that’s been consistent. And if I remember correctly, this is a potato tempura right after the sweet potato. And then this is squid on the bottom left and uh pork tempura on the top right. The tofu tempura next. And this one was soul fish, I think, if I remember correctly. And of course, ebie tempura. And to finish it off, we have a mini ten don bowl with miso soup. And last but not least, dessert. This was some sort of pudding or panakotta. And I didn’t manage to take a picture before I scarfed it down. There was also mochi and ice cream. Overall, I absolutely loved the food. And the prize wasn’t too bad either. Now, we move on to day three. So, we have an early lunch at the restaurant called Hakata Robata Fishman. It was recommended by someone to us and I want to thank that person for recommending it. Look at what my mom ate. This is a special dish. Only 10 are uh served for each meal. And this is mine. I ate their special uh donbururi set. was freaking delicious. And the best part, it was actually quite cheap. And then after that, we headed collectively to the Tenzin station area cuz uh there was a lot to see over there. So this is uh my brother and I walking around the various malls in the areas. is a Mitsukoshi, Parkco, Daimaru, etc. We are heading towards a place that uh we could buy some weeb stuff. Actually, it was slightly hot outside, so that wasn’t too comfortable. But at least when you get indoors uh into the air conditioned places, it’s uh becomes more comfy for uh us. And so here inside the if I’m if I remember correctly, this is the Parkco Mall. Uh we were headed towards another floor but uh we noticed some interesting shops, interesting clothes. So uh we took a look and that over there is the One Piece store. Never watched that. So not interested. Absolutely not interested in One Piece. And again, like I said before, the selection of stuff in Japan, especially clothes, shoes, jackets, etc. It’s just [ __ ] outstanding. And here is the main target floor. It has an animate on it and a Cospa. So, got to go to the Cospa shop first. And of course, it’s me. So, my aims are usually the Gundam themed stuff, but uh there are lots of other things here like what is it? Mushokensei. Is that Mushokensei? and Macros. And here we are at the Gundam section. Quite possibly their biggest section in the store. Looking through some shirts, which one deciding which one to which ones to get. A lot of good designs, but I tend to avoid the how should I uh describe it? the screaming weeb style of shirts. I I I go for stuff that uh is a bit more subdued. And yeah, if you saw that, I grabbed that macros cap. I bought that. I buy the Federation flag as well, just for uh just for the LS. And here we see other uh franchises. the Gojira Godzilla for Westerners. And now we’ve moved on to Animate. Just taking a look around and I spot a Chibi Ginshi and Ma Mau from Kusuraniano Hitoto aka Apothecary Diaries which is one of my current favorite series. Can’t wait until the next season in 2026. lots of manga in anime. So, if you’re hunting for any particular ones, you can probably find them here, but will be in Japanese, not in English. So, keep that in mind. And I spot one of my favorite mangas of all time, Slam Dunk, cuz it uh unites two interests of mine, manga and basketball. and more Apothecary Diaries merch. Lady Goku, aka the troll. The troll concert. And we head back outside again. Sorry for the bit of shaky cam. I was adjusting. Well, the backpack was a bit loose. The camera is attached to my backpack and wasn’t able to tighten it up much here. So, here we’re just walking towards Daimaru where my parents were shopping. So, we’re just going to meet up with them here. And then after dinner, we went to Bar Igisu Ya, which is basically a Englishstyle bar, not a pub, but a bar. They had quite a good selection of whisies. So, we spent a bit of time over there. Good atmosphere and good selection. What else can I say? And then after that, we bar hopped over to Bar Nowhere. It was a great small bar. The owner is a really big rock and roll fan. Lots of memorabilia all around his bar. A lot of them even from famous musicians themselves or signed by said famous musicians. The owner, Yusuke, was super cool. And he even brought out the electric guitar and rocked out for a bit. And if I ever end up in Fukuoka again, I will definitely come back. Okay. Day four, Wednesday. Lunch is at Ganso Akanoren Setchan Ramen. I forgot to take a picture of what I ate, but obviously it was a bowl of ramen. And after that, we headed to the Ishikura sake brewery cuz myself, my brother, and my mom are huge fans of sake. So, they have a shop area where you can do tasting, buy sake and other related merch from their store. We love their sake and my mom walked out with a bottle of their premium one, I guess. Also, very good place. It It also can host events, weddings, and the like. Pretty big when they open it up. And after the sake brewery, we headed to the Hakata station area where my mom wanted to spend a couple of hours at hands, you know, the big crafts and materials shop which is famous. So my brother and I went around to the other buildings. Of course, first target was the Surugaya cuz you know, had to check out all the anime related stuff. It’s a big reason why we’re here. Yeah, lots of figures as usual. Can get some for good prices cuz uh I think a lot of these are pre-owned. Some are brand new, I think, but a lot are pre-owned. And I’m a big Macros fan as well, so I keep checking out uh stuff from Macros, too, when I find it. Figure of a good old Lacus Klein. Kind of regret not uh not buying that one. There’s a bust head of the new Gundam. This is the Lacus Klein impersonator and Haman Sama Bonszai. Bit too expensive. If it were cheaper, much cheaper, I’d have bought it. Yeah, lots of Lacos figures. She’s pretty popular, I guess, especially with the movie somewhat recently. Oh, this one. Kalen figure from Geese. I have this exact one. Another Kalin figure. This one is a swimsuit. The thing is, I don’t generally buy dupes. No, no, not dupes. More than one figure of the same character cuz, you know, I have limited, very limited space for display cuz most of them, most of the display space is taken up by Gunpla, obviously. And here we are at the Gunpla section. Yeah, I was I was thinking about this cuby, but I wanted the purple one or the orange one. see a resale there, but it’s not the commander type, so I had to pass. Plus, it was kind of pricey, too. As with most kits I’ve seen, everything was kind of pricey at least. And Uber overpriced on the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. Here some games, retro/classic games. I buy some of those, my old favorites or uh something I feel is worth displaying every so often. Yeah. Looking through the PS2, PS3 catalog, there are any Gundam or Super Robot Wars games. Especially if they were like a,000 yen or less, then I I’d jump on those. It’s the old terrible Street Fighter movie game, the one with Vanam. I don’t know if any of you guys are old enough to have seen that. That was absolutely terrible. Guilty Gear X. Used to play this a lot back in the Dreamcast. I love fighting games, but I suck at those. The love does not translate into skill. Here we have Sunrise Autan. I have this one for the PS2. I think it was the enhanced version. Sakura Tyson, an old icon present in Super Robot Wars 30. You guys played that. Here we are at the PS2 section. Gundam Seed game. No thanks. Not going to buy something purely Gundam Seed. And Generation Genesis. I have this one, I think. And I have that Encounters in Space one already. Okay. Check out some other anime related stores. again. I’m always hunting for a good deal. Date Alive characters, Overlord characters. Haven’t watched that, by the way. Not my cup of tea. One piece. Another one that is not my cup of tea. And afterwards, we walk towards a nearby book off. A book off is something that I will always check out cuz you know like I said hunting for deals. Lots of deals to be made or to be had rather in book offs not just for anime stuff but even secondhand tech watches clothes etc. Even liquor they have a book off brand store for liquor. Mus general figures. Yeah. What what’s that called? Gotobun Hanayome. Yeah. And book offs have really good prices. So, if you’re looking for uh good deals like I always am, it’s always good to check out any book off you come across. See, even some shirts over here, Shin Chan, plushies or like pillows, etc. Cards, lots of cards. More figures. Slime Tensei if you’ve seen if you saw those and some stuffed toys again. More figures. Ava and like I said tech and electronics. If you’re looking for something in particular, well, you might find it here. Lots of uh Apple products that are secondhand in bookoffs. That’s what I’ve observed. And some of them, some of the branches even have good amounts of Gunpla. Prices here were okay. I guess some some were good, but none of the kits were anything I was particularly looking for. And in the evening, we finally ate dinner at Ayatai. Those streetside stalls. We ate here at Shezer Remy. We saw this one on YouTube. French dude running a yatai. My mom wanted to go here and so this is where we had dinner. Forgot to mention Fukuoka in general is famous for their yatai. Day five. Oh, look. It’s a Warhammer store. Anyway, today we are slated to check out something that was built to real life scale. So, we had to take a train from Akasaka station to Hakata station first. Lots of people, but not too many because it’s not Rush R. This was about 9ish in the morning, I think. So, Rush R is already done with. And once we’re at Hakata, we needed to take a bus. So this is us walking towards the bus stop we needed to go to. But before that, we bought the Sugoka card to make it easier for us rather than paying in cash all the time. So we can just tap the card to pay on public transport. Lugo kakard is the Fukuoka or/ushu equivalent of Suika. And so here we are at Laaport. Obviously we are here for one thing and you can see it in the distance at the left hand side of the screen. And there it is. The real life scale new Gundam. I’ve seen the life-size unicorn Gundam before, and of course, I had to see the other life-sized mobile suit, the new Gundam. So, it’s here at the Laaport Mall area. It’s quite far, but you know, you just had to go. Here it is from an alternate recording device from my phone instead of the action cam. pretty freaking impressive. They got all the details, all even all the markings. And yeah, here it is from other angles. This one doesn’t go into destroy mode like the unicorn does, but this is no less impressive than that one. And we had lunch inside the mall. And afterwards, we take a look at the whole thing before going to the Gundam store. And this is GU, a sister brand of Unilo. Generally the same types of clothes I guess but different enough which is why it’s a different brand and so yeah lots of other international brands on here like Michael Kors again. I I’m looking for clothes cuz I need new wardrobe, new shirts, new polo shirts, new polos, short sleeve ones. Here we have some citizen watches. I’m a big fan of that brand. This is a Japanese brand, I guess. First time I’ve seen it. Looks good though, but pricey. And I checked the price tags. And here we are at Gundam side Fukuoka. Basically, it’s a Gundam base. And here we have Amoros New Gundam and Char’s Suzi. Let’s go in take a look at uh what they got inside. Of course, they have uh displays for built products, built model kits, rather. And we have a a building area, I think. Yeah, builder’s area and some uh explanation uh displays and the like and more displays. Alpha AIL head over there. They have a lot of merch aside from the kits. But speaking of kits, here are some of the side F special uh kits available from retail only here, I guess. And speaking of being available only here, the Gundam base stores have a limit on stuff you can get per person. and even to take a picture of you so you don’t come back later in the day with sungl with a sunglasses on and a wig maybe to buy more for you to scalp. So that’s a good system I guess. Speaking of other merch, we have some pens. Not interested in that, but good on them for having stuff like that. We have a tumbler for drinks. And you can see that I grabbed one. Straight into the basket it goes. Got the cap. I was debating on whether to get this, but I got the Macros cap earlier on. couple of days earlier, but you know, I was debating and I declined to get this one, which again I somewhat regret now. And we have some Gunpla. I have this one. I bought this one a couple of months ago, the Regz Amoro CCA version. I have a review on it on my channel if you’re interested. Yeah, they have the Robot Spirits line as well. action bases, HG kits, mostly HG kits. I was uh hoping for more MG kits, but not many of them. Have the basic Jun here. Grab some decals and paint and tools if you needed if you needed any of them. And here’s a display of uh the mobile suits Amoro and Char used throughout the uh universal century shirts as well. I was uh thinking of getting some, but uh the designs weren’t uh super my thing. So, I passed on getting any. So, once we were done with the Gundam side F, we headed towards the daimo area. had to take a bus from Laaport to Nishetsu station and then from there a subway towards the daimo area itself. What sucked was once we got out of the subway it was raining and rain makes going around a pain cuz you know you have to take out your umbrella every time you get out of the store and stow it every time you go inside a store you get wet etc etc. Anyway, we headed to this area because it is known for having a lot of clothing stores, both new and vintage/sechand ones. Again, deal hunting. And you know how careful Japanese are with their things. So, this is one of the few places/countries where I trust secondhand stores almost implicitly. So, like I said before, I’m looking for short sleeved shirts, polo shirts, and polos. But I am also in the hunt for either a really, really dark blue or black jean/denim jacket. See, I see here one possibility, but I tried it on and it was too small. way too small because I am a tallish lanky guy with long limbs. So yeah, sometimes it’s a pain looking for something that fits well with me. And again, cuz it’s a secondhand store, one of the challenges is finding something that’s perfect for your size. You might find a design you like very much, but if it doesn’t fit you, too bad. So, we spent a number of hours looking around in this area. And like I said, here’s a car heart store. So, because uh it’s not just uh limited to secondhand stores. There are uh there are stores which carry brand new items as well. So, this is a very nice uh area. I’d go back if uh there’s a chance in the future. So yeah, I was able to buy a number of uh clothes and jackets at the end of this. So it was a good result at the end of the day. Now we move to Friday, October 16th, day six in Fukuoka, which is also our last full day in this wonderful, wonderful city. So this here is the basement area of Daimaru, uh that uh big shopping center/ mall. So this part of the basement is full of confectionaries, chocolates, traditional sweets, pastries, all kinds of uh desserts. So we’re here looking for presents slash souvenirs for our uh relatives at home. That’s a custom we usually Oh, not usually. It’s a custom we always have. So, we have uh souvenirs for people uh that we’re close to, friends, family, etc. So, I am just looking around while my folks pick some of the stuff they’re going to give out. I’ve already picked out some, so I’m uh looking around on my own. And here as I I noticed something very interesting. I’m a Final Fantasy 14 player and I spotted the special H Highelin collaboration whiskey. So after shooting the footage, I came back to buy said bottle of whiskey. couldn’t pass it up. I was here already and it wasn’t that expensive, so it’s perfectly fine. I haven’t opened it yet as of time of recording cuz I have other bottles which uh you know which need to be consumed first. Again, just a goddamn lot of sweets and pastries and everything. The Japanese are really so good at this with pastries, confections, their own traditional sweets. They just make so much good stuff. I’m a fan, speaking of uh traditional confections, I’m a fan of mochi and a lot of the wagashi traditional sweets they make. I love Japanese chocolate. So yeah, it can turn deadly in terms of sugar consumption if you’re not careful. Here we are. We have some I think those are strawberry confections on the right that I just passed. And another wonderful thing about this is there are a lot of uh preacked or packaged uh goods here. The sweets are packaged very nicely and it’s like yeah they’ve designed this to be given out as gifts already. No need to repack or put it in another container when when you get home. These are all designed to be goodlooking and you know, you just give it and whoever receives it is going to be happy cuz it’s a very well packaged good/sweet or food or candy. Very well made in a very well packaged container. So yeah, that’s that’s another thing that’s super good about the Japanese. Their packaging is impeccable in not just food, but most types of uh goods. Their packaging is the best. And so this is lunch. This is in the same building. And the rest of the day was basically for personal uh shopping. I didn’t shoot. And that is the Friday, our last day in Fukuoka. And we move on to a day that’s mostly travel because we’ll be taking the Shinkansen from Fukuoka to Tokyo. And this is the train we’ll be taking. And while waiting, I had myself a famiki, the famous chicken from Family Mart. Anyway, so on this leg, it’s just me and my younger brother. My parents are going home to our country from here, so we’ve separated from them at this point. This is at around 10:30 a.m. The train was set to depart at 10:30 and it was I think it was 5 hours to Tokyo. And I’ll let some uh footage of the train journey play while I discuss my thoughts about this first leg of the trip. So, Fukuoka was a damn wonderful city. compared to Tokyo, it was way more chill and relaxed cuz you know Tokyo has that fastpaced lifestyle and in Japan most other cities do not have that kind of mindset. So Fukuoka was a fun and chill place. Lots of good food. That tempura omakas was super super good. It was just the best. kind of expected this because again it’s not Tokyo but prices of uh most things especially the food were quite lower than what I would uh expect for something similar in Tokyo. The area we stayed in the Daimo area my mom picked that area was a great choice. Lots of good restaurants nearby. Lots of the secondhand clothing stores are also nearby. It was a bit far from the main Hakata station, but you know, you pick your uh you pick your areas. It is a bit close to the Tenzin area of Fukuoka. However, the farthest we went to was the outlets in Kitakushu. And well, we encountered some problems on that trip. I guess this was my fault because I was basically in charge of uh mapping out and navigating to destinations, but I was much more used to Tokyo and this was my first time in Fukuoka. So I had the mindset that trains were available all the time and or there are trips available every couple of minutes. That might be true with the main line in uh the city of Fukuoka itself, the airport line or the ones that go through Kata and Tenjin, but for this one going to Kitakushu, there was like just three per hour, two or three trains per hour, and I kind of screwed up on the schedule. So, we were waiting for about half an hour for the next train headed there. And that’s wasted time. The next one was like a collective error. We all set out a bit too late. So, we did not get as much time as we wanted in the Kitakushu outlet to shop because we also had a reservation for dinner. And considering that the trip was more than an hour, we had to allocate time for that as well. So, yeah, lesson learned for that. You need to take a good look at train schedules for uh longer train trips wherever you are in uh Japan. Don’t just assume that there will be a large number of available trips and don’t just assume there will be a train at the time you plan on going somewhere. So yeah, but yeah, I loved the city of Fukuoka in general. The people were great. The food was great. The weather was pretty nice. The weather didn’t give us a hard time. It barely rained. It wasn’t too hot. Wasn’t too cold. It was just right. That will uh vary for some people. Some of you like it cold. Some of you like it hot. As for myself, I am weak against cold because I am from a kind of hot country. Yeah, I have nothing negative to say about Fukuoka. I loved the time I spent there and in the future if circumstances and finances allow then I will want to come back for sure. But as of uh right now in the video that is all in the rear view mirror. We are headed to Tokyo, one of my favorite cities in the world. And we’re headed there for the most part to do some shopping cuz in Japan you do shopping both for personal stuff like things you’ll wear and also for your hobby stuff. You know how I love anime and manga and Mecca and all those things and video games. So yeah, got to head to Tokyo to do some shopping. So, please look forward to that episode where my brother and I go to the various places in Tokyo to do some shopping. And yeah, that’s it for now. Please look forward to the next episode. Like this video and subscribe. This has been Eternal Wind 08. See you on the next part of this vlog.
I love visiting Japan and this is the first part of my most recent visit which was in October 2025. This video is a vlog for the first leg of our Japan vacation which is in Fukuoka!
TIMESTAMPS
Intro – 00:01
Day 1: Arrival Day – 00:53
Day 2: Kitakyushu Outlets, tempura dinner – 02:40
Day 3: Awesome fish lunch, strolling around the Tenjin area, evening bar hopping – 07:38
Day 4: Sake brewery tasting, strolling around the Hakata area, Yatai dinner – 14:59
Day 5: Life-size robot at Side-F, clothes thrift/2nd hand shopping – 24:32
Day 6: Souvenir shopping, wrapping up – 35:59
Travel Day: Boarding a train to Tokyo, thoughts on the Fukuoka leg – 40:56
AloJapan.com