Week 52 January 27 - February 2, 2014

It has been a busy week, but mainly with mission home activities.  Going to the Bank to cash checks and pay bills, going to the convenience store to pay bills and going to the post office to pay bills and bank.  Now that sounds mixed up but that is how it works in Japan.

Our main activity of interest this week was on preparation day, when we had two Japanese classes.  One in the morning at 10:00 a.m. and one in the evening at 7:00 p.m.

At our class location I took a picture of some flowers, but I don't know what they are.

After the morning class we decided to bike and find the ferry terminal.  I had been told it was nearby so we went to the Fukuoka Dome and no ferry terminal so we looked on the map and headed to the Hakata Ferry Terminal quite a ways a way.

We had to bike along the water front.  Here is some photos of one marina we passed.

This is called the Hakata Fishing Port and Kamome Plaza (since 1999)

A view of the marina.

Luetta in front of a tug boat.

Here is a huge ship propeller.

Across from the marina was a huge loading area with the two big red and white cranes.  The large bridge is the Fukuoka Urban Expressway with a very interesting design of suspension bridge with the central tower and cables sloping down both directions from the tower.

We saw a huge ship (maybe military or coast guard type).  An unusual display of the Japanese flag on the stern.

Here is a close up of the stern.

This shot out into the bay show two large ships.  I think they are both ferry's, the closest has a huge vehicle drive on stern.

As we got closer to the Hakata Ferry Terminal we saw this building that looks like an airport control tower, but I think it is for controlling the traffic on the bay.

Nearby was this shrine with a horse in the front.  Notice the shipping containers in the background, this area must be for loading shipping containers on ships.

Close up of the horse.

Finally we got to Hakata Ferry terminal.

 with the interesting statue in the front.

I went inside to get a schedule, here is a view of the ticket counter, and

There was even an aquarium inside.

Well it was to late in the day to consider a ride to the other side of the bay, we want to see the ocean (actually the Korean straits) someday.

We headed back home passing this interesting sculpture.

It's called the "swing", I have no idea why.

Our final trip home we went up some very narrow, steep streets.

All in all a very interesting day.