Day 3: Day trip to Yanagawa - Fukuoka, Japan

Getting to Yanagawa is quite easy. The train took us right to Nishitetsu Yanagawa Station (See 61). And there is no worry about how to get to the Yanagawa river boarding and ticketing office. There are staffs waiting at the Nishitetsu Yanagawa Station exit trying to get customers to board their boats. The staffs guided us to the free shuttle that took us from the train station to the boat boarding location. A short 10 minutes bus ride.

I google ahead and found a 10% discount voucher for the boat ride. Just had to show them the screen shot and we got 10% off. There are several boat services available at Yanagawa, we just coincidentally matched the 10% coupon with the boat service we came across.

Came to 1620 yen per person.

The boarding location is right next to the ticketing office. Just need to line up and wait for the next boat to sail off.

The place is super sunny with no coverage. The boat ride is about an hour long. So, they offer hats for rent for those who don't want a tan or be burned.

There are videos where the man rowing the boat would jump over bridges. Turns out we didn't get on that boat services. Those are from the ninja boat services. Ours are regular that just row the boat normally. The "captain" of our boat is probably in his 60's. Really can't expect him to fly all over the place.

It is a nice peaceful ride on the canals around Yanagawa. Along the way, the "captain" of the boat, or whatever you call a guy rowing a boat, would tell us about the history about the area and let us now where things are located around the small city. He event sang and got everyone to cheers and sang with him. So, the hour pass by very quickly.

Other than the canals, Yanagawa is famous for their eels. There are several restaurants that serve eels on rice in the area. The restaurants near the Yanagawa river cruise sightseeing street (See 62) were completely packed with people even though everywhere else the village seem very empty. Where did all those people come from???

We went to a restaurant further away from the main touristy area, which we just found on google map. A place call Unagi no Fukiうなぎの富貴 (Eat 82).

Ungai or eels are not cheap. It's probably the most expensive meal we had on our trip this time. To be honestly, I don't like eels, but it felt like a must-try since it's a local specialty and I probably won't be coming back again.

The restaurant is very cozy inside with lots of Japan culture posters and lots of hello kitty decorations on the wall.

It's one of those restaurants where we had to take off our shoes. Fortunately, we all had good looking socks on.

They have different sets. Some more expensive than the others. However, after seeing what we got, which ranged from the basics to the most expensive set, they are all the same. So, we should have just saved our money and ordered the basics only.

The area doesn't have much touristy spots in my opinion. We saw on the map there is buddha laying on its side (See 63). Decided to check it out. It was about a 15 minutes walk from the main canal sight seeing area.