In Fukuoka City and returning

 The nice woman in the information booth told us that our bank was at the far end of this passageway. There is a huge underground shopping and restaurant area, but there are also long passages that lead to exits near above ground facilities. We went to the bank and, as I said yesterday, we were unable to do our business. We also need to stop at a different bank at Hakata Station, so we took the subway back.

 This is Hakata Station as seen from a second floor walk way. There are many stores and restaurants in the area and inside the station building. There are two large bookstores, both of which carry English books. One of my favorite places to stop is Tokyu Hands. They sell many things but I particularly like the section for tools and hobbies. I can easily kill an hour just wandering around in this section, to say nothing of  the kitchen appliances, stationary, and gadgets sections. Since I was with my wife, we went to the kitchen appliances section and she bought a couple of small items. We then thought it was time for our Shinkansen home, so we went and bought tickets and then went up the platform.

 On the platform we discovered that I had misread the schedule so instead of five minutes we had to wait half an hour. We found a seat and drank a Coke while we watched the other Shinkansen trains come and go. From here they go south to Kagoshima and northeast to Osaka. If you want to go passed Osaka, to Tokyo, for example, you have to change trains.

 On the way home, our long ten minute ride, I had a window seat so I too some pictures. This is still downtown Fukuoka, but an area that contains mostly apartments as opposed to the commercial areas around the stations.

Getting close to home, you can see that the buildings are mostly one and two stories with only a scattering of taller apartment buildings.

A trip into Fukuoka City

 This is the pedestrian bridge from the Station Building to the Shinkansen platform. My wife and I are on our way to visit a bank in downtown Fukuoka.

 The Shinkansen has just pulled into the station. This is the train that takes us into Fukuoka in only 10 minutes. However, except for the rush hours, there is only one train an hour.

 At Hakata Station, we went to the lowest level and took the subway to Tenjin Station. The bank is quite near the station but we do not know where.

We walked through the underground shopping area and found this stained glass picture. The black sign is for Doutor, a chain of inexpensive coffee shops. They have pretty good sandwiches. The blue sign is for the subway that we just left. The white sign is general directions for the trains. We finally decided not to try to find the bank on our own and instead went looking for an Information Kiosk. We quickly found one and the woman in it gave us directions without even looking at her reference material. The bank probably has a lot of foreigners looking for it since it is part of an American chain but it is not on most of the maps. The directions were perfect and we found the bank within a few meters of the last subway exit. However, we found that we needed a different hanko, name stamp, so we had to leave and will go back again later.

At Sendai Station and then home

 My wife went to Tokyo to babysit our grandson, so I went to Sendai Station with her. She had to buy a ticket for the Shinkansen, the Bullet Train. There are two ways to get a ticket. If you don't want a reserved seat, you can get your ticket at one of these machines.

 If you want a reserved seat or a special train, you go to a counter and get waited on by a human.

 This is the main set of wickets for entering the Shinkansen area. It is completely automated and it is just like getting on the subway. However, there is the added advantage that you can get your ticket through your cell phone and then just wave the phone over a plate on the top of the wicket.

There used to be a large statue that people used as a meeting place, but for some reason it was removed. Now people use this stained glass window.

 I left the station and did some shopping in the basement and then returned home. The construction project to replace the levee banks was in full swing.

Near the bridge most of the work has been completed and they are now landscaping.