Three days in Fukuoka: a ramen city nearer Seoul than Tokyo

Hakata's temples, a castle ruin above a lake, yatai on the river and a morning in Dazaifu

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Fukuoka
Places
8 across 3 days
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Fukuoka is the city most first-time visitors to Japan skip and most repeat visitors put on the list. It is the biggest city on Kyushu, closer to Seoul than to Tokyo, and it is built to a scale that a person can walk: airport to city centre in six minutes on the subway, temples and castle and beach all inside a few kilometres.

It used to be two towns facing each other across the Naka river, the merchant port of Hakata on the east bank and the samurai castle town of Fukuoka on the west. They merged in 1889 and the name went to the samurai side, which is why the city is Fukuoka and the main station is still Hakata. That split is still the most useful thing to know about the layout: temples and food on the east, park and castle on the west, and the river with the food stalls on it in between.

Two nights is enough for the city and a morning in Dazaifu, the old regional capital half an hour inland, whose shrine is one of the most visited in Japan. Come hungry: this is a ramen town, and the plywood-and-tarpaulin stalls that appear along the river at dusk are its best hour.

Highlights

  • Shōfuku-ji, the first Zen temple founded in Japan, and empty on most days
  • A ten-metre wooden Buddha sitting in the dark at Tōchō-ji
  • The stone bases of Fukuoka Castle, with the whole city below them
  • Tonkotsu ramen at a yatai on the Naka river, six stools under a tarpaulin
  • Dazaifu Tenmangū, the shrine of the god of scholarship, thick with students before exams

Where to stay

Fukuoka, two nights

Sleep in Hakata for the trains or Tenjin for the nightlife. Hakata puts you next to the shinkansen and the airport subway and inside the temple district; Tenjin puts you in the shops and the bars and a short walk from the river stalls. Both are cheap by Japanese city standards, which is one of the quiet arguments for coming here.

Two nights covers the city and Dazaifu. A third would go to Nagasaki, two hours away and one of the more interesting cities in Japan, or to the hot springs at Beppu and Yufuin across the island.

Day by day

Day 1 in Fukuoka

The old temples of Hakata, and yatai after dark

The Hakata side is small and flat, and three of Japan's more consequential temples sit within a few hundred metres of each other on the low ground behind the station. It is an easy afternoon on a day you arrive.

Shōfuku-ji was founded by the monk Eisai in 1195, after he returned from China, and it is where Zen entered Japan. It is also where tea did, since Eisai brought seeds back on the same trip. There is almost never anybody there, and you can walk the grounds for free.

Kushida Shrine is the city's own, and the float from the Yamakasa festival stands under cover in the grounds all year, over ten metres of gilt and painted figures, which is worth the visit even in January. Then eat at a stall by the river when the light goes.

  1. 15:00

    Shōfuku-ji

    Religious

    The first Zen temple established in Japan, founded in 1195 by Eisai on his return from Song China. Quiet, unticketed and rarely visited, with a bell tower and a couple of old gates. Ten minutes' walk from Hakata Station.

  2. 16:00

    Tōchō-ji

    Religious

    Around the corner, and worth going inside: the hall holds a seated wooden Buddha 10.8 metres high, carved over four years and finished in 1992, with a dark passage behind it that you walk through in complete blackness.

  3. 17:15

    Kushida Shrine

    Religious

    The city's guardian shrine, traditionally dated to the eighth century, and the starting line for the Hakata Gion Yamakasa races each July. One of the festival floats is kept on display in the grounds year round.

  4. 18:30

    Yatai on the Naka river

    Eat

    The stalls open along the riverside around six. Sit down at whichever has a free stool, order ramen and a beer, and expect to talk to the person next to you.

With more time: Two small museums in the same few blocks: the Machiya Folk Museum, in a restored merchant house, explains Hakata weaving and the festival, and the Asian Art Museum a little west of the river collects modern work from across Asia and is better than its size suggests.

Day 2 in Fukuoka

Fukuoka Castle, Ohori Park and the tower at Momochi

The west bank was the samurai half, and the castle is still the high ground. Almost nothing of the buildings survives, but the stone bases and the gates do, and the climb to the top of them takes five minutes and gives you the best free view in the city.

The lake below was once the castle's outer moat, and it is now a park with a two kilometre loop that half of Fukuoka seems to run at any hour. The small Japanese garden on its south side charges a couple of hundred yen and is worth it for the twenty minutes of quiet.

In the afternoon, go out to Momochi on the bus. The tower is a mirrored triangle on the seafront with the bay on one side and the city on the other, and it is best at dusk. The beach below it is where the city goes to watch the sun set.

  1. 09:30

    Fukuoka Castle ruins

    Historic

    The foundations, walls and one surviving turret of the castle Kuroda Nagamasa built here from 1601. Climb the steps to the keep base for the view over the park and the bay. The visitor centre lends tablets that overlay the vanished buildings onto what you are looking at, which is more use than it sounds.

  2. 11:30

    Ohori Park Japanese Garden

    Visit

    A small, formal garden of raked gravel, clipped pines and a tea house, walled off from the joggers next door. Half an hour, and the best twenty minutes of it are sitting still.

  3. 12:45

    Lunch by the lake

    Eat

    There are cafes on the water on the park's east side, including one on the island in the middle. Nothing remarkable, and a good place to sit outside.

  4. 16:00

    Fukuoka Tower

    Architecture

    A triangular mirrored tower on the seafront at Momochi, with the observation deck at 123 metres and a television mast making up the rest of its 234. The view is better after dark, when the city is lit and the bay is not.

With more time: For the evening, Tenjin is where the city drinks, and Oyafukō-dōri (roughly, disobedient child street) is four hundred metres of bars that fill up with students at the weekend. Prices here are honest in a way they are not in the equivalent Tokyo districts.

Day 3 in Fukuoka

Dazaifu Tenmangū before the flight

Dazaifu was the government seat for the whole of Kyushu for six hundred years, and it is half an hour from Tenjin on the Nishitetsu line. That makes it a genuine last morning rather than a stretch: out at nine, back by one, airport by two.

The shrine is built over the grave of Sugawara no Michizane, a ninth century scholar and minister who was pushed out of the court in Kyoto and exiled here, died two years later, and was deified after a run of disasters in the capital was blamed on his angry ghost. He is now the god of learning, which is why the place is full of students buying charms before exams.

The approach street sells umegae-mochi, a grilled rice cake with red bean inside stamped with a plum blossom, cooked in front of you and eaten hot. Buy one at each end and compare.

  1. 09:30

    Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine

    Visit

    One of the head shrines of the Tenjin cult, set among six thousand plum trees that flower from late February. The one by the main hall is said to have flown here from Kyoto to follow Michizane into exile. Vermilion halls, an arched bridge over a pond shaped like the character for heart, and a great many bronze oxen that people rub for luck.

  2. 11:30

    Kyushu National Museum

    Culture

    Ten minutes behind the shrine through a tunnel and up an escalator: the fourth of Japan's national museums, opened in 2005, and the one that tells Japanese history as a story of contact with the rest of Asia rather than in isolation. A curved timber and glass building that is worth seeing on its own.

  3. 13:30

    Back to the airport

    Travel

    Nishitetsu train to Tenjin, then the subway two stops to Hakata and five more to the domestic terminal. Allow ninety minutes door to gate.

With more time: With a longer morning, the ruins of the old Dazaifu government headquarters are a twenty minute walk from the shrine: foundation stones in an open field with nothing else on it, which is a strange and rather good thing to stand in after the crowds on the approach street.

Before you go

Getting in

Fukuoka Airport is unusually close to the city: six minutes and about ¥260 on the subway from the domestic terminal to Hakata Station. There are flights from every major Japanese city and from most of east and southeast Asia, and from Tokyo the plane takes two hours against five on the shinkansen for a similar fare.

If you hold a rail pass, take the train anyway. Fukuoka is the western terminus of the Sanyō shinkansen and the start of the Kyushu line, so Hiroshima is about an hour away, Osaka two and a half, and Nagasaki and Kagoshima are both easy day trips or onward legs.

Getting around

Three subway lines cover almost everything here, and a day pass costs ¥640. Better still, tap a contactless credit card at the gates: the system caps your daily spend at the price of the day pass automatically.

The two centres are Hakata, around the station, and Tenjin, the downtown two stops west. They are twenty-five minutes apart on foot across the river, which is a walk worth doing at least once in the evening.

Buses are frequent and cover the gaps the subway leaves, notably out to the tower and the beach at Momochi. IC cards from anywhere in Japan work on both.

Ramen, and the stalls

Hakata ramen is tonkotsu: a pork bone broth boiled until it is opaque, thin straight noodles, and very little else in the bowl. You are asked how firm you want the noodles, and kaedama means a second helping of noodles dropped into the broth you still have, for a couple of hundred yen.

The yatai are the reason to eat outdoors here. They are licensed handcart stalls that appear on the pavements around six in the evening and pack away before dawn, seating six or eight people under a tarpaulin, and Fukuoka has more of them than the rest of Japan put together. Ramen, yakitori, oden and beer; cash; and no menu in English at most of them, which is part of it.

When to come

Spring and autumn are comfortable and the plum blossom at Dazaifu in late February is a genuine event. Summer is hot and humid and the yatai are still full anyway.

The Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival runs for the first half of July and ends with teams racing one-ton floats through the streets at dawn on the fifteenth. If you are anywhere near Kyushu that week, come.

Fukuoka is the easiest big Japanese city to be in. Nothing is far, the subway is short, the food is cheap and good, and the people are noticeably less formal than in Tokyo, which visitors notice within a day and struggle to explain afterwards.

Spend the days on the two riverbanks and the evenings on a stool under a tarpaulin. That is the whole trip, and it is better than it sounds.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Fukuoka worth visiting on a first trip to Japan?
Only if you have more than two weeks. On a first ten day trip, Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima earn their places first. On a second trip, or as the start of a Kyushu loop taking in Nagasaki and Beppu, Fukuoka is one of the most enjoyable cities in the country and one of the cheapest.
How do I get to Fukuoka from Tokyo?
Fly. Two hours against five on the shinkansen, at a similar walk-up fare and much less if you book ahead. The train only wins if you hold a rail pass or want to stop at Hiroshima on the way.
What should I eat here?
Tonkotsu ramen at a yatai stall, mentaiko (spiced cod roe) on rice or in pasta, motsunabe offal hotpot in winter, and gyoza in one-bite size, which is a local speciality. None of it is expensive.
Is Dazaifu worth the trip?
Yes, and half a day is the right amount. The shrine and the national museum are ten minutes apart, the plum blossom in late February is the best time, and the approach street is a pleasure at any time of year.
Can I add Nagasaki or Beppu?
Both work from here. Nagasaki is about two hours by train and deserves an overnight rather than a day trip; Beppu and its hot springs are two hours the other way. Copy the trip into the planner and add a stop at the end.