Japan Last Night

For our final night in Fukuoka, we went back across the canal to the row of outdoor food stands overlooking the water. We figured it would be kind of cheap (for Japan) to eat at a stand, but evidently eating on prime view real estate costs kind of a lot. We ate like a little variety pack of meat on a stick and some noodle soup, as I recall, and I don't remember how much it actually was per person, but we were all very disappointed with the price. We were also getting a lot of silent, and then more vocal, pressure from the proprietors to get the hell out, as some of the group were taking their time with their beers. It didn't really seem like anyone was waiting, but I'm sure they would rather have a table ready to rope customers in.

Afterwards we found these two chicks who were doing quite an entertaining musical performance. We stayed and watched for a while and talked to a couple of the locals.

Here are some shots of the bridge. This is the silver statue lady:

And some street (bridge) musician:

And us. This is my new jacket, by the way:

Next we were on our way to a bar, but got distracted by all these bands lined up in the park that was giving the music festival earlier in the day. We heard this band of strapping young lads, called Sept Couleurs, and decided to listen to them for a while. I think we stayed about two hours, drinking beers from the corner store the whole time. They were quite good, and a lot of fun.

The dude in the white hat we met over where the two chicks were playing. He was talking to us for a while and seemed cool and I figured he could find us a good bar, so I invited him along when we left, even if only to be polite and not leave him hanging. He ended up being pretty annoying, continually bothering us to get going to the bar, while we were enjoying the music from these boys. We told him to go ahead if he wanted, but he waited for us, anyway. When we finally were ready to go, he brought us to this bar called Broadway (he had previously told us he had been an actor in New York and worked on Broadway, and we were very impressed, but I think that was a miscommunication).

Eventually Emily joined in while the others took a break:

The coolest thing about these guys is that although they didn't speak a lick of English, the singer was still able to sing Beatles songs, and even read the lyrics he didn't know (in English) WHILE PLAYING AND SINGING as someone scrolled down a lyrics website on a cell phone.

When we got to the bar, we ordered a very large pitcher, which I guess Emily didn't take a picture of (these are all her pictures), and the white hat dude drank some of it, but didn't contribute any money. What a douchebag. Evidently he was a promoter or an employer for the bar, and had been antsy all night because we were wasting good money-spending time away from his bar.

This is how I feel about THAT guy: