Japan , April 2017: Narita Airport to Fukuoka, Friday 14th April 2017

Up early and into a taxi to arrive at the airport at about 6am to check into our 2 hour Jetstar flight to Fukuoka

Fukuoka is Kyushus largest and one of Japan's ten most populated cities. Because of its closeness to the Asian mainland (closer to Seoul than to Tokyo), Fukuoka has been an important harbor city for many centuries and was chosen by the Mongol invasion forces as their landing point in the 13th century.. Fukuoka has its place in the history of Japan as the place where rice farming was introduced way back in 500 BC and its importance as a trade post and the gateway to this magnificent country. Until the end of the Tang Dynasty in the ninth century, Japanese diplomats, scholars and priests set off for China from here and it is also through this port town that Chinese scholars returned bringing with them Buddhism and science and Chinese medicine Fukuoka prospered even as dynasties rose and fell. In the 16th century, the shogun Totomi Hideyoshi made Hakozaki Shrine his military headquarters during the campaign to unite south-west Japan. The Shogun’s victory heralded a golden age of prosperity for Fukuoka City. In 1601, a feudal lord built a new castle on the west bank of the Naka river and decided to name it Fukuoka after the city of his birth. This created confusion between the east and west sides and to date the confusion persists! The east side was named Hakata and the western side was called Fukuoka. Even today when a visitor arrives at Hakata Station, confusion sets in as he thinks he is in the wrong station. In the 19th century industrialization took over and Fukuoka was leading example with factories being built at a furious pace. During the Second World War there was an influx of Korean and Pilipino slaves and in this way the so called internationalism of the city grew as these immigrants stayed on even after the war. Known as the Gateway to Asia Fukuoka’s place in Japan’s history has been etched into its future.

We arrived about 9.30 to catch a 20min train ride into the city to drop off our bags at the Crown Plaza just around the corner from Hakata station.Back to Hakata Station to top up out train passes that we use on each trip for a 40 min ride out to travel out to Uminonakamichi Seaside Park which is a sprawling, family oriented public park located on a narrow peninsula across the bay from central Fukuoka. The park is made up of several different areas including flowr garden, playgrounds, an amusement park with ferris wheel, sports fields, a water park, a zoo and large open spaces and lawns perfect for picnicking.

Uminonakamichi Seaside Park measures nearly four kilometers from end to end, and many visitors will find it too expansive to cover on foot. To make the park more easily explorable, there is a network of cycling trails, and bicycles can be rented at the entrance gates Which we surely did and headed off to explore the park.

Uminonakamichi Seaside Park is also a popular place for flower viewing, with millions of flowers planted around the different areas of the park including narcissus, tulips, nemophila, roses, hydrangeas, sunflowers and cosmos among others. The flowers are in bloom at different times of the year, but the general blooming season starts in mid March and lasts through early autumn.

In addition, there are about 2000 cheery trees planted around the lawns and along the cycling trails, which form beautiful cherry blossom tunnels when in bloom and make Uminonakamichi Seaside Park one of the city's popular cheery blossom spots. The cherry trees around the park are mostly of the Somei Yoshino and Oshima varities ,and typically bloom from late March to early April.

We headed off to the right hand side of the above picture along the beach cycle path

It was lined with plantings to pine trees to help with erosion and salt protection of the park. Here's a view looking back into Fukuoka

We circled back and soon reached the zoo with the usual sprint king of moneys , goats etc however they also had a fewunusual looking Cranes, Alpacas and the brightest coloured flamingos we had seen( far better colours that the ones in Botswana)