Dazaifu city would make a nice day trip from Hakata as this place can easily be reached by train in less than one hour journey. There is this famous shrine, called Dazaifu Tenmangu especially for students or anyone who are seeking progress and success academically. This is because this Shinto shrine dedicated to Tenjin, who is the deification of Sugawara no Michizane, the famous scholar, poet and politician of the Heian period. You can find a lying bull where people believe for achieving academic success by rubbing its head. They also sell some amulets to take home for good fortune as well.
Not only that, but you can also find a popular Starbucks shop for its unique and sophisticated design. On top of that, there are lots of snack shops that you can run into along the sando pathway leading to Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine like umegaemochi, rice crackers, and many many strawberry snacks and ice cream cone stalls.
Once get off from the train, you can either walk to the shrine or ride on a bus for only one minute ride. However, with walking it would take around 5 minutes until you arrive at the shrine area. For us, it kinda took more than an hour walk instead of 5 minutes, because we stopped at nearly all the shops and tried a bit here and there.
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| Umegaemochi 150yen |
Umegae mochi is a Dazaifu's specialty rice cake with red bean filling. There are a few shops selling this along the sando pathway (Omotesando) and you can see how they are being made from the clear window at each shop. Ume in Japanese means plum. The cake has an imprint of Japanese plum blossom on it. As so many plum or ume trees are planted near the shrine of Tenjin who was very fond of this tree.
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| Fish cake with cheese 500yen |
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| Fresh strawberry, mochi and red bean sandwiched in between sweet cracker 700yen |
This thing was really good. The strawberry was very fat, plump and juicy. It is married very well with that mochi and sweet red bean paste. They were sandwiched in between light sweet crackers. However, for pricewise, it was slightly too pricey though, it costs A$7 for each.
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| Japanese basil rice cracker 190yen |
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| Japanese rice cracker with plum and spices 200yen |
This is one of the busiest Starbucks shops in Japan. People keep lining up to take pictures with their front shop and inside decorations as well. And lucky that early time of the year, they offered an opera frappuccino drink that I really like. It was a rich chocolate and coffee drink blended together then topped with fresh cream and more chocolate sauce.
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| Seasonal menu: Opera Frappuccino blended cream 790yen |
When we walked down back to the station after we'd visited the shrine, we got hungry again regardless how much snacks we had earlier. So, we stopped at one of the restaurants along that Omotesando. I'm not so sure the name of the restaurant was but they have these food replicas displaying at the front and they apparently offer varieties of menu that suit the palate of each single of us. My son loved his curry katsu, while my husband wanted to have some soba and my parent went for something simple like pork cutlet don and for me, I was craving of some clear soupy dish that can keep me warm. We can find all of them under this one roof. We were happy with the food; they are basic but delicious.
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| Pork cutlet curry rice 1,100yen |
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| Deep fried pork cutlet rice bowl 1,091 |
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| Shrimp tempura udon 1,078yen |
FYI: To go to Dazaifu from Hakata Station, it is not covered by JR Pass but instead we need to catch a train from the subway line and it costs 580yen per one way ticket or 700yen by bus. From what I heard, you can also buy a bus ticket package from Hakata Bus Terminal that costs 2,100yen. This package includes unlimited bus rides as well as a few promotional discounts.
Stay tuned for the next blog still in Fukuoka:
