Sunday, October 28, 2007

Thank God I'm a country boy

Lately I've been feeling a longing for some nature. I live in the downtown area of Fukuoka, and very rarely ventured from the streets filled with restaurants, clothing stores, and pachinko parlors. Yesterday I decided instead of going out to eat, I would venture alone into the country side. Turns out it was a lot closer than I thought. Only took about 20 minutes by the local train. Probably about 5 by the express.



When I first got to my stop I was a little concerned when I saw the mas amounts of power cables above the city gate. But all that was needed was a 5 minute walk to reach a giant park full of people playing sports with their kids, running with their dogs, and this kid, practicing his trombone skills.





Behind the park were a few narrow streets with old fashioned houses and scattered shrines like this one.





Walk a little farther up the hill and city streets become old tattered roads dotted with quaint little farms.





Past the farm land lies a beautiful forest trail leading up a mountain. Thats not mist, just some farmer burning trash on his farm.



Ok here's where it gets a bit scary. In Japan any area that has trees is guaranteed to be filled...FILLED with the biggest, nastiest spiders I have ever seen. These things are absolute giants, and if you look up into the sky you can usually find about 6 or 7 of them hanging out over your head. I am not exaggerating. They are everywhere.



I managed to be able to get right up on one with my macro lens. That's right, no zooming here baby. My hand was about an inch away from satan himself. There are 2 different types. This one with the fat body, and one with a not quite so fat, but extra long body. Both are equally frightening.



More to come of my brush with nature.

5 comments:

debby said...

Oh my gosh, now I KNOW I'll never go to Japan! I was eating breakfast when I saw these. GROSS!!
Mom

Mk said...

OH MY GOSH!!!! That is a freaky spider!!!! The ones I saw were pretty freaky but not like taht. . . the ones I saw had little bodies and super long legs and the legs were striped green and black. But were scary enough.

Derek said...

The country is indeed a beautiful place in Fukuoka. Iizuka-shi was no exception. Back when I was doing homestay I did enjoy the view during the train ride every day. 50 minutes or so of mountains, forests, and rice fields. The ride back at night was a little different; just sleepy, worn-out, zombie-Japanese staring at the floor or my shoes for an hour were all that I was able to look at since the sun had gone out.
Oh, and a centipede just like that one crawled over my foot at the train station one night. I yelled like a little girl.

Patrick Jinks said...

Ryan, this is a great posting! Lots of great pics! I HATE spiders!

Gene said...

Ryan, you can find info on your spider here: http://www.cyberoz.net/city/sekine/zukax301.htm