The Museum, Fukuoka, Hit Parade, and The Waterfalls

As mentioned in the previous entry, I intentionally waited to post on this until Chris did it first, so I could make sure we didn't repeat each other, and so I could leach off of his movies and photos. If you like you can follow the links to pictures and descriptions on Chris' blog as you read this.

We started out last week Wednesday with a day exploring Usa. The first stop was the 100 Buddhas of Usa city.

Next I took Chris to the historical Museum in Usa. We weren't technically supposed to take pictures, but I didn't see the sign until we were leaving the museum. Chris wanted me to stand in a couple of pictures to get a scale for how big some of these sculptures really were.

Wednesday night I bunked at Chris' place, and then Thursday we drove back to Hita, met up with Shoko, and went into Fukuoka city. We showed Chris the high lights of Fukuoka city, namely the many bookstores and the huge shopping malls. Picture available on Chris' website here.

Thursday night we all slept at Shoko's. On Friday I brought Chris back to Ajimu. The plan was to stop at a bunch of waterfalls and sight seeing areas along the way, but we got a bit of a late start to the day so we only had time for a couple waterfalls. The first was this one right off of the main road.

Next was the big Ryuman Waterfall in Kusu, which is a great place to slide down, although not quite as smooth as the Waterfall in Yabakei. Chris and I both bruised ourselves a bit on the way down, but that didn't stop us from climbing up and sliding down a second time.

And in the evening we to Hit Parade with a bunch of other friends.

I've been to Hit Parade many times before, and I always feel like words can't really do the place justice. It's a retro night club built to imitate the style of the early 60s, complete with a Japanese rock band that does covers of English pop songs from the era.

The whole place is a bit surreal, especially for people who have just arrived in Japan and are still in that stage where everything feels surreal.

Which is why I'm glad Chris put some pictures and video on his blog which really help to capture the atmosphere of the place. There are some pictures posted here, as well as a short video of the Japanese band mangling some Beatles tunes here.

And here is a video of the same band singing "Heat Wave" complete with a shot of the crowd dancing. If you have a sharp eye you might be able to pick me out in this video. I'm a bit in the back ground, but I'm wearing the "Mind the Gap" shirt that Rob gave me, which looks like a red circle with a blue line through it.

Link of the Day
I thought I'd try a little something different for a while here, I'm not sure if it will last or not, but I thought it would be a fun idea to close each post with some sort of link I thought was of interest.

I realize a lot of you reading this have moved on from Grand Rapids, or were never there to begin with...
but if you are still in the area, I would be concerned about this detailed post on Media Mouse documenting police surveillance of anti-war protesters.