Day 3: Kawachi Fujien - Fukuokta, Japan

Saw lots of pictures about Kawachi Fujien. They were all so amazingly beautiful and I just had to get out of my way to reach this place. To get here, we were supposed to take the train to Yahata Station and take the shuttle bus up to Kawachi Fujien. What we didn't know was that the last bus going up the mountain was at 3pm. By the time we got to Yahata Station, it was already 3:30pm. On many websites, it says there is another bus, bus #56 that goes up the mountain. However, that bus seems to have stop running years ago....got tricked by info on the web. We came all the way here, there's no way we would give up! So, we took the taxi from Yahata Station to Kawachi Fujien, which cost about 3000 yen.

Finally we arrived! entrance fee for that day was 1000yen. the entrance fee varies according to how the wisterias are blooming. From the pictures online, I thought this place would be huge and that flowers would be in full bloom. However, that wasn't the case. It's quite small and you finish strolling around the place in about 15 minutes.

When I looked online, the tunnel is supposed to be filled with hanging wisteria, like the picture on the pamphlet. However, reality was that there were barely any wisteria.

There are some spots with more wisteria.

This dome would be awesome to take pictures in if only the wisteria was in full bloom.

This view was quite amazing though. Look down at the garden on the top.

So, now the problem was that the last shuttle bus going down the mountain was at 4:30pm. Which, we just missed. We saw the bus going down, leaving us behind, right in front of us....

Luckily, we met some really nice exchange students that gave us a ride down. We were absolutely grateful....because it would be a 2 hour walk down the mountain. So, although the garden didn't seem like it was worth the effort and money to go, the most valuable thing from this trip was meeting a group of new friends. So nice of them to drive a group of strangers down the mountain~