Fuk 8/07 - pt 5 - (Some of) The Lost Pictures!

You guys probably don't realize, but occasionally I have trouble keeping up with stuff and I miss a blog or two... or to put it another way,  sometimes there are pictures which I never get around to uploading and blogging about. ;-)

実は先月の日本の旅行のブログ書いて終わりません。前部ここです：

You may remember I went back to Japan (yet again) at the end of August.  The original parts were here: Fuk 8/07 - pt 4 - Mega-Trance 

9/06/2007
Fuk 8/07 - pt 3: Hawks vs Marines 

8/29/2007
Fuk 8/07 - pt 2 

8/27/2007
Fuk 8/07 - pt 1 

8/26/2007
Japan... falling way behind 

8/26/2007
Update from Japan! Anyway,  there were a few pictures from my trip that I didn't get a chance to upload...  and like my previous entries... i'll try to be educational for those of you who want to learn more about Japan...

でもまだ二部が有る。遅けど、アプーした！このブログは外国の友達は夜遊びのもの説明です：

Let's start with nightlife.  Almost every Japanese city has at least one active nightlife section... usually there are several distinct areas:

One area is full of Izakaya ( wikipedia - japanese traditional drinking establishment), snack clubs, hostess bars, etc - this is often times melded with the sex industry type places.  This is Nakasu (中州)... Fukuoka's version of Kabukicho ( 歌舞伎町)...  

ここは福岡の中洲。居酒屋とかホステスバーとかスナクとかセークズ所とか一杯が在る。。。

Nearby to these types of areas is usually a street or two full of the infamous 'Love Hotels'... (for obvious reasons). They can usually be spotted by their neon lighting...  I didn't take any pictures of that area of town this time,  but here's one off my hard drive from two years ago:

近くにラブホテル所も在る。これは2年前撮ったの写真。博多の一台ラブホテルですよ：

As you can see, some of them get pretty fancy.  Ironically these types of places generally aren't brightly lit at street level, since people don't want to be spotted coming in and out of the front door. :-P

 I promised some of you guys a full expose on these... i'll get to it sooner or later. ;-)

外国人にはは日本のラブホテルがとても面白ものですよ。よく僕は“ラブホテルのブログを書いてください！“と聞きます。(アメリカでそなのホテルないから！）

Another busy type of nightlife area is the youth oriented areas... lots of bars and clubs are quite busy even on week days.  Especially if they're doing some kind of dance related special events, there's usually a big overflow onto the street,  collecting around the nearest convenience store: 他の夜時人一杯の所はクラブお外。福岡の一番有名クラブ街の名前オヤフコウ通りです。コンビニーお外いつでも人いっぱい居る：

Mind you this is like 2 or 3am.  In the US, the police would kick everyone out of a place like this.

Its pretty cool just to hang out and people watch in a place like this, sometimes I take a break from the hot, crowded clubs and grab an 84 yen OJ...  For some reason the hip-hop and raggae types seem to be hanging out in these types of locals more than the trance/techno types...

深夜ですけど、人が多い。如何してそのレイゲー好きな人いつでもお外で佇む？トランス人あまりしません。　:-P

Another place you'll find lots of people late at night is at food stalls on the street.  These are called Yatai (屋台): 　屋台で人も一杯：

Around 7pm or so you can see the shopkeepers rolling these things out and setting them up on downtown streets. A lot of their customers are people getting off work who want to grab a quick, cheap meal.  Most of them serve Ramen noodles.

晩7時後から屋台がある。仕事後、遊ぶ後の人よくここで食べている。。。ラーメン屋台一番多い。

This area in Nakasu, along the river is famous for its Ramen Yatai, they stretch down the walkway for like 100 yards.  (but keep in mind that right across the river are the love hotels and behind these things are the 'red-light' places..) :-P

I actually have a bit of a phobia of these kinds of places, so to be honest, I've never actually eaten at one! ;-)

福岡に中州の川隣一番有名なラーメン屋台所です。でも僕は屋台で食べません。病儀なりたくないよ!

As it is japan, sometimes you see really random stuff when you're walking around at night... for example:　よく日本で面白物見つけます：

何ですか？建設工事現場?何点光ですか？

They do a lot of road and sidewalk maintenance during the night hours in Japan... They usually use a portable generator with a big, ultra-bright light on it.  To diffuse and spread the light, the light is usually in a big opaque white ball.  But for whatever reason this one was NOT shaped like a ball:

WTF?  this was the middle of august too! :-P

すごい!如何して？冬じゃない！

One thing I like to do is see the unique vehicles in Japan... They might have great public transportation, but Japan has a very vibrant car (and motorcycle and scooter) culture.   Mostly these guys only come out at night...  Here's two more interesting things I spotted parked along my way:

Its a tow truck!  its a LOW-RIDER tow truck! its a Low Rider tow truck with mettalic purple fleck paint! 

This scooter had a pretty nice paint job and flame running boards...  its too bad it was parked and not moving, some of them have pretty fancy lighting effects (i have a some more old pics of those too... another blog I need to write!)