One Reason Why Tourists Are Not Warmly Welcomed at Nanzoin Temple
We are up at 6:45 and go down to breakfast. I hadn't remembered or minded the outdated, tired and tight accommodations of the Crowne Plaza that Janet noted yesterday. What I do remember is the breakfast buffet for the wide selection of local and international food.
The quality of the food was very good and everything I had was delicious. My favorites were the curry and ramen. 
Besides fruit juices and cold drinks you could order special hot beverages that noncoffee drinkers like Mike and I declined. The lobby of Crowne Plaza has fall and Halloween decor.
Today we are going to the Nanzoin Temple with the Reclining Buddha in the morning and teamLab Forest in the afternoon. The forecast is rain so we check out umbrellas at the front desk. At 9 we take a train on the Kyushu Line to the Nanzoin Temple .
As soon as we walk out of the train we find we have been transported from a big city to a peaceful, rustic countryside. Here spiders like to make their elaborate webbed homes on the ceiling of the covered wooden walkway of the small station. Don't look above if you are afraid of spiders as there are a clutter of them . 
Female Joro Spider
An enticing outdoor food stall adjacent to the station beckons hungry visitors, but not those of us with full stomachs. We cross the Melody Bridge with a handrail featuring a metal zylophone on both sides. It brings out the child in all of us as we tap out notes using whatever striking items we have available. There were two sets of small mallets at the end but they were not available for all of us to use. 
After the bridge it's a very short three minute walk to the temple. I lag behind the group, admiring the the decor of a smaller temple structure 
and must wait for the light to turn green before crossing the street to the temple entrance.
There are many restrictions for visiting the Reclining Buddha which is a sacred place of worship and not a tourist attraction as evidenced by the prohibition of taking selfies as well as photographs in restricted areas.
The grounds are very beautiful. Small streams, green foliage, a row of mossed covered pagoda lanterns line the pathway. There are small shrines, and buddhas of various sizes abound. 
Before a set of stairs stands a bronze buddha with his tummy shiny and smooth from being rubbed by people wishing for good fortune.
Surprisingly a large maneki nekko stands with it's right claw up. Flowers have been placed in the upraised claw. A bell with a long rope is tied around it's neck. Visitors can pull the bell and wish for good fortune. 
A grounds keeper is cleaning a koi pond that has a red arched bridge. 
I love all red arched bridges (they originated from China from the ancient times and are arched to allow small boats to go under). After I take several photos (trying to avoid taking one with the busy groundskeeper), he tells me brusquely "No photos!". 
In my defense, I hadn't noticed the "No Photo" signs. Another small pond has a bale of turtles. You had to watch the turtles for movement in order to see which ones were the real ones. 
Large tour groups are prohibited from visiting this area. Admission is free, but groups of 8 and above need to pay 200 yen admission per person and need to be accompanied with a Japanese tour guide. Norm had whatsApped the evening before with the advice “Pretend we don’t know each other" to avoid having to wait for a tour guide to lead us. This was difficult for our very social group to observe and under the watchful eye of a shrine steward we were quickly identified as a group. 
The steward came up to some of us and said “Your group needs to pay at the ticket counter!” 
Actually the admission is very low so many visitors pay regardless of the number in their party. 
Franc says "I've already seen a reclining Buddha in my travels" and still mindful of his leg discomfort, opts to forego the climb up to the Buddha. He will wait for us near the entrance. A brightly lit tunnel lined with little plaques leads to the Buddha. 
Photos are not allowed inside the tunnel but someone in our group couldn't resist taking one of a small shrine. 
There is a miniature shrine in the middle of a small lake. 
Six Jizo (guardians of children and travelers) statues, with differing poses, greet us on the path. 
A longer row of a dozen Jizo statues with both caps and scarves sit on a mossy curved stone shelf wall. In cold months locals take care of the Jizo statues by covering their heads and necks with red caps and scarves. This helps earn them a better chance of getting into the afterlife. 
Above them stands a medieval maiden and her warrior.
They remind me of Maid Marian and Robin Hood and I wonder who or what they represent. 
There are some cute statues. 
A single statue (in need of some eye care) greets visitors next to the last stairway to the reclining buddha. 
“I can see the Buddha’s head” says Norman as we round the bend.
As we walk to the front of the statue we see a long white cover concealing the lower half of the Buddha. 
It's undergoing renovation. It was a bit disappointing but at least we could see the soles which are beautifully decorated with gold symbols. 
Beside being a place of worship, visitors go to wish for good fortune. Nearby is an area where you can buy feathered darts that you aim into boxes in the hopes of having good fortune. 
Koi swim in a pond near the head of the Buddha.
Back down the hill near the entrance is a large Fudō Myōō statue. 
Close by is a stately cedar tree that survived a lightning strike. 
Carved into it is the relief of Raijin, god of lightning. 
While DeAnne checks out trinkets at the gift store, 
Teddy, who enjoys fishing and Doug, who enjoys keeping fish, admire the koi in the pond with the red bridge.
A very observant Doug also noticed a tiny land crab no larger than the size of a quarter foraging in the leaves near a stream's edge.
Back at Hakata station we found lunch at a food court and our group split up to go to the restaurant of their choice. The Louies and Wongs enjoyed lunch at Yebisu Bar, a pub with Japanese and American food.
Omurice
Hamburger and Rice
The Fongs and Franc enjoyed Chinese food at Long-hu.
Mapo Tofu set
After lunch we take the 306 bus to teamLab Forest, a digital art museum that features interactive images. It's located in the Boss E-Zo building which is a building with entertainment and fun inside and outside. 
Outside on the rooftop there is a roller coaster ride and along the side of the building is a tube slide. 
Right next door is the PayPay Dome, a baseball field. TeamLab is located on the 5th floor. 
We have been to two teamLabs on our previous trips, both of them in Tokyo. We must have come at nonpeak hours or this teamLab is not as popular because there are no lines for getting inside. 
Onsite tickets are purchased at a kiosk machine.
For maximum experience using an app on your smartphone to interact with the digital art is necessary. We opted to just walk through and admire the art. In the Athletics Forest your balance is challenged as you step on rotating balls, 
and undulating floors,
and wobbly stepping stones. 
The largest space is Beating Valley. This is where all the creatures drawn by visitors come to life. Some of us go to the sketching room to select an image to color. 
Your coloring is scanned and we head out to the Beating Valley to look for our art. 
Doug’s yellow eel was very large and easy to identify.
I never found my red flower as it was small and I hadn't colored it in a distinguishing manner. The Typhoon Balls are huge lite balls that change color when pushed or bumped. The balls around them respond in kind. 
After a quick turn inside a kaleidoscope,
we leave teamLab and check out another floor in the building. DeAnne and Lisa go to Sanrio Dreaming Park for a quick peek. 
and meet up with the rest of the group who had finished earlier and had been waiting for the rest of us outside. 
After the bus dropped us off at Hakata station, Franc and Teddy went straight to their hotels while the rest of the group went shopping at the AMU mall. Most of us head to Daiso and then Uniqlo. While I was shopping at Uniglo, Doug called me over to Jin, an optical shop next door. Janet had an eyeglass question. Jin was having a store opening promotion. Janet was considering buying a pair glasses that has clip on dark lenses and wonders if the clip-ons will serve as sunglasses for driving. I told her yes. I decide to buy a pair of computer prescription glasses.
For buying two pairs we received a 10% discount on each pair. The glasses would take half an hour to be ready so we go to dinner. Lisa and I had seen a place with soufflé pancakes when we were making our way to the 8th floor Uniqlo. I have fallen in love with Japanese soufflé pancakes since my first trip to Japan in 2017 when my son introduced us to it. The wait to get into a restaurant serving these light as air pancakes can be long due to their popularity and since they are made to order, it takes at least twenty five minutes from ordering for the pancakes to be served. It's not fast food fare. We retrace our steps to search for the place that we had passed on our way to shop. I thought the name of the restaurant started with “Pancake” (googling later reveals that we had passed The Original Pancake House on the second floor of the Kitte Department store) but when we stumbled across the sign in front of Hoshino Coffee featuring soufflé pancakes in addition to pasta, we decided that the wider menu selection was perfect, plus there wasn't any lines. We ordered pastas for our main entree
and for desert Mike and I ordered a double soufflé pancake to share 
and Janet ordered a single pancake. Lisa and Doug each ordered an actual soufflé. The soufflé pancakes arrived in less than ten minutes, much quicker than expected. 
After a few bites, pancake connoisseur, Janet, expressed her disappointment. "These taste like regular pancakes.
It's like eating a fat regular pancake!" Janet complained. She didn't finish her portion. Mike and I had to agree that our pancakes were not fluffy, airy, jiggly, and lightweight. They were quite the opposite, but we finished our pancakes while regretting that we were really eating fat American pancakes, regardless of what the menu said. Lisa had never tried soufflé pancakes and because she and Doug had ordered actual soufflés, they enjoyed their dish. It's time to pick up our glasses. We head back to Jins. Our glasses don't need much adjustments and we leave with our glasses in pink cases.
Both of us have satisfied our penchant for buying glasses, not out of need, but because they were too much of a bargain to pass up. The funny thing is Janet can get any glasses she wants since her son is an optometrist and Helen, well, she's an eye doc too, but who can resist a bargain!
This featured blog entry was written by Helen K. from the blog South Korea and Japan.
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