Our neighbourhood

Recently Vaughan has been receiving curious e-mails from his JET successor, a Canadian girl who's hungry for every bit of information she can get about Fukuoka. Turn back the clock to June 2005 and we were in exactly the same boat - eager to find out where we'd be spending the next few years of our life, and hoping for the best. In retrospect we certainly got one of the best deals around: we live a mere seven-minute subway ride away from the city center, yet our flat is also in walking distance of the beach :-) and very close to the heart of our local area, Nishijin. The Nishijin Shotengai (shopping area) is actually an attraction in its own right, because it conjures up the feeling of 'old Japan' with its tiny shops in narrow alleyways, a daily vegetable market and the famous "Rear Car Butai", carts attached & pulled along by bicycles (see below), usually run by ladies who reached retirement age decades ago! Local media even compare the atmosphere to that of a South-East Asian market, which is surprisingly accurate. Well, it's not Vietnam or anything, but maybe as close as you'll get in Japan's modernized society. Another place I'll have to say goodbye to before Monday - sigh :-(...