We took the shuttle from the hotel in Beppu, which was more like a van taxi than a shuttle. There was a family of three already loaded when we climbed in. The 20 minute ride went in a blink of an eye because we talked to Eden in the back seat. He is from Shanghai by way of Toronto and he works predicting financial trends. His masters was in predictive mathematics. We talked to him on the platform as well. Once the Sonic 28 arrived we popped into the green car, first class all the way! At least that was until the conductor came by and asked for our tickets. It turns out we had purchased tickets for the wrong day. When we booked Beppu, we only booked two nights. Later we saw that they were running a special "book two nights stay three nights." So we added the night but did not update all of the spreadsheets especially the train travel spreadsheet. Of well, after much back and forth with the conductor we paid 10,000 yen and were good to go. The rain came down most of the trip to Fukuoka and we had a slight break while we were in the taxi stand. No sooner did the taxi driver open up his trunk and the skies opened up as well. It was a smooth ride to the hotel. We did not like our first room and had to wait in the club lounge while waiting for the next room to be ready. We took a walk to the ferry terminal and back and then had dinner in the Club Lounge and enjoyed the lights of the city from our 30th floor room.
Eden and his parents behind him
Rainy train trip
the windshield of the train
Passing a large bridge
Off in the distance
More farmland
This truck had a sountrack playing while we sat next to it at a light
I am guessing it was an advertisement for a lottery
The Sea Hawk Hilton
Next door was the Pay Pay Dome
It is a port town
the aquarium is off on a peninsula
Black Kites were flying all around
He is looking at us
Unique buildings in the distance
Super fast ferry
We could not identify the pagoda
A ferry terminal
A good place to take a walk to
Unknown, is it art?
Big Ferris wheel
A cavernous dining hall
Lots of scaffolding
Huge carp kite and smaller ones behind
The Pay Pay dome
A sculpture on top of a termite mound
Two pedestrian bridges
Our room is on the 30th floor towards the right
Down by the waterside
Tall palm trees and tall spire
A flower festival over on the island
Nice art
A larker for the entrance to the seawall
A topo map of the area on the sidewalk
Clay pigeons
What the gals are wearing these days
A coast guard ship has been in the bay for days
The Ferris wheel is all lit up
The spire lights up too
Great view
From the 30th floor
It is a big city indeed
