The sun was shining today! Hooray! And so we decided to take a short train trip out to Nanzoin Temple – about 20 minutes away – to see the giant reclining Buddha.

The temple grounds were really lovely and serene, and it wasn’t too crazy busy which is always nice. We wandered around and enjoyed the nature.

Then we found the Buddha. It was a very large Buddha. Apparently the same size as the Statue of Liberty.

It was such a nice sunny day that we couldn’t resist matcha icecreams.

It was really lovely there and it was such a nice sunny day. Hard to believe how miserable the weather was yesterday. What a difference a day makes!

I actually took loads of photos because everything was so picturesque, but I am trying hard to not upload 4000 pictures to every blog post, so you will just have to take my word for it – or visit yourself one time. As far as temples go, this one was really special.

We were getting hungry, so we decided to head back to Hakata station, pick up a bento for lunch and then head to Ohori Park to see if there were any Sakura blooming.

It was quite busy at the park, even though the Sakura had only just begun to blossom. It was still nice there though, so we put down our leisure mat and enjoyed our bento. Which were delicious btw, but I think Steve got the children’s set.

We chilled there for quite a while before getting some coffees and chilling for a bit longer. Then we went for a wander around, looking at all the food stalls and participating in the stamp rally. oh and eating more icecream. I had Hakata salt icecream. Delicious!

We started walking around the lake at the park,

but were soon distracted by a delicious looking cafe where we stopped for a matcha latte and a ginger latte.

We basically spent all the afternoon at the park hanging out out, eating, taking photos, looking at the 5 trees that actually had blossoms on them, it was a lovely afternoon. In the evening we went to some illuminations and the Fukuoka castle ruins site. It was cool. They recreated the castle with metal and lights. It looked very sci fi. Again, would’ve been even better with Sakura in bloom, but it was still pretty awesome.

As we were leaving we saw this….

We were tired and it was getting late and cold by this stage. Caught the train back to our station and stopped in to the nearby Lawson Konbini for EGG SANDWICHES for dinner! Yes, best EVER! Oh and an onigiri too, Busy day.