Japan's Ninja Boatmen of the Yanagawa Canals and Hakushu Kitahara Festival Fukuoka Daytrip

Описание: Today we were picked up by our friend Keiichiro-san and his family for a day out visiting Yanagawa and an entertaining boat ride around the canals.

Yesterday we visited Ohori Park and the Fukuoka Tower and you can watch that here:    • Fukuoka Tower with Ohori Park riding Swan ...  

Keiichiro-san first took us to a very nice traditional Udon Restaurant where we experienced Tatami Mat dining for the very first time!

We entertained the locals with our chop stick skills and felt like we were the centre of attention for some reason, the Beef Udon was the best we had ever tasted and the people were lovely to us.

We carried on to Yanagawa then a short ride from the booking office we boarded boats that in England we would call a 'Punt' very similar style vessels to those flat river boats in Cambridge.

The boat trip was about one hour long and it covered 1.6 miles on my Garmin watch. I believe it cost about ¥2000 per person, I'm not sure as it was Keiichiro-san's treat along with our lunch, the Japanese are very hospitable.

Look out for the songs of the boatman, this was on the 1st November 2025 and the Hakushu Festival was due to begin that very evening so all the lanterns were out as you will see.

We then walked around the canal side for about 45 minutes, watched a boatman's ninja skills over a bridge until the tour bus picked us up and took us back to their booking office.