Wanderlust UK – September 2019

(Axel Boer) #1

128 wanderlust.co.uk September 2019


Perfect symmetry
(top to bottom)
The green tea †ields
of Yame in Fukuoka;
Tochoji Temple's
16m-high Buddha

FUKUOKA
INTO THE
WILD

In the south of Japan lies the
little-visited island of Kyushu –
a hotpot of geothermal activity,
where the volcanic, forest-
covered landscape wouldn’t be
out of place in a Tolkien novel.
According to a UK-based
survey for the Kyushu Tourism
Board, less than 10% of
people in the UK have even
heard of Kyushu – yet it’s one of
Japan’s largest islands.
My first stop here was
Fukuoka, Kyushu’s easygoing
‘capital’, which sits on the north
coast. The city’s free spirit is
evident in its yatai – fun,

clinking glasses and shouting
kanpai (‘cheers!’).
But Fukuoka is also a spiritual
place, home to more shrines
and temples than both Kyoto or
Tokyo, including the 16th-
century Dazaifu Tenmangu
Shrine, surrounded by 6,000
plum trees, and the 9th-century
Tochoji Temple, which houses
the largest seated wooden
Buddha statue in Japan, at
16m. Beneath this giant
Buddha snakes a pitch-black
tunnel that you can walk
through, symbolising your
movement from dark to light. I’m
not usually a spiritual person,
but having walked for five
minutes in the dark, I found
myself thanking the giant
Buddha that I didn’t trip over.

Later that day, I drove out of
the city and within 40 minutes
found myself in the countryside,
the water-flooded rice fields
reflecting the clouds above like
mirrors. I passed the almost
luminescent green tea fields of
Yame – famed for having the
very best gyokuro (shade-
grown green tea) in Japan –
and across to the small city
of Yanagawa, originally home
to over 930km of waterways,
which were once the centre
of the city's irrigation channels.
I gently floated along the canals
in a wooden boat, punted
by a local man in a straw hat.
He sang a mesmerising song
in Japanese, the breeze
making the willow trees billow
like silk curtains.

alcohol-fuelled street food
stands that can fit around eight
people on stools shoulder-to-
shoulder. I squeezed onto a seat
at one buzzing stand and
quickly found myself slurping
ramen noisily with the locals,
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