Yesterday my wife and I decided to go into town to see an exhibit of pictures by Yonekura, a fairly famous Japanese artist. We walked to Hakataminami Station but instead of taking the 9-minute Shinkansen, we decided to go by bus. The Shinkansen goes to Hakata Station but we wanted to go to an area called Tenjin, which requires a subway additional trip. This picture is the bus stop and the upper right panel contains the schedules for the various buses that stop here.
We had to wait about 10 minutes for the next bus, so we went inside the station building. The picture shows something that you would not see in most other countries. Behind the waiting area chairs, there is a small store that sells mostly women's and children's clothing. The store was completely open, anyone would just walk in and wander around, but there was no clerk. After about five minutes a man showed up (I have no idea where he had been, but it was not near the store) and turned on the lights, apparently opening for business.
This is the waiting area for the buses. The chairs are quite comfortable and the floor to ceiling windows allow you to see your bus when it arrives.
Our bus is the one with the orange words over the front window. The driver had just gotten in and started the engine.
Buses here are very convenient. In Sendai we could buy a prepaid card that was good for buses and subways. But here, all the buses have this gadget by the door. You can use a smart prepaid card by just holding it over the blue area. The difference is in the prepaid cards. Here they are the ones issued by the train companies. There are 12 different cards in use nationwide and starting this month they are all interchangeable. I have a card that I got in Sendai that I could use on the local trains and in some stores. Here I can use it on all trains and buses and some stores. You can also use a smart phone but I do not have one.
This is the inside of the bus. At first there were few passengers but gradually more and more people got on and by the time we reached the first major stop, Ohashi, or Big Bridge in English, it was standing room only. The trip took about 50 minutes, compared to 30 for the Shinkansen and subway route, but it was a little cheaper - and the view was better.
The first thing we did was go to the exhibit. We bought a calendar with Yonekura's illustrations. His technique is very similar to some of the things that I have done and I learned a lot through a close examination of his works. After the exhibit, we found a small, cheap restaurant and had lunch. My wife had a steak and I had tofu and thin sliced beef. Both came with rice, miso soup and some vegetables. It was very filling and the total bill came to just over 1000 yen. After lunch we went to check the bus schedule for our return trip, when my wife noticed a Best Denki, a store that sells all sorts of electric and electronic goods and appliances. We still needed a lot of things for our apartment so we decided to check it out.
Best Denki is the tall white building in the distance. Once inside we decided to buy a gas range and and oven/microwave combination. After a long discussion with a very nice middle aged female clerk, we found exactly what we wanted at discount prices. We paid and ask to have them delivered and installed. The price for this was very reasonable, 2500 yen each. We then decided to go up another floor and check out air conditioners. Getting off the escalator, we found they were having a sale on last year's models and we found two air conditioners that were together far under the price that we expected to have to pay. So we bought both of them and again asked for delivery and installation. They are coming tomorrow to install them. The stove and oven will take about a week and half to arrive, so we will continue eating from restaurants and the supermarkets.
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