Fukuoka Hotel and New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve, we moved on from Kumamoto to Fukuoka, on the northern coast of the island. I had actually visited Fukuoka before, for a long weekend with some friends when I was living in Korea. So I was sort of familiar with the city. Anyway that's not important. What's really important is that I had booked us for five nights at the Fukuoka Best Western, because it was reasonably cheap and in a decent location. I had read the reviews about the hotel, and pretty much everyone said how ludicrously small the rooms were, even by Japanese standards. But both Ed and I figured it wouldn't matter, since we'd be out of the room most of the time.

But man...

Our room so small, it's a quarter hallway:

Our room so small, it's got a SEMI-double bed:

 Our room so small, it only fits half a chair:

Our room so small, the clock numbers have to be stacked:

Our room so small, we only get half a tissue box:

Our room so small, the fridge is just a door:

Our room so small, we get a trashcan off a Starbucks counter:

But we managed, of course. The bathroom was nice, anyway. Here's a picture of us after visiting a couple bars on our first night--which was New Year's Eve, as I mentioned.

As a side note, in Japan, they don't go out drinking with friends on New Year's Eve. They stay at home with family and eat soup. The noodles in the soup represent the crossing from the old year into the new. They also watch music and dance performances on TV, part of which we saw at one of the bars. Some people visit a temple or shrine at midnight, and at that time, Buddhist temples ring a bell 108 times, to represent the 108 shittiest earthly desires. It all sounds boring without alcohol.