Kasuga Park

When people talk about Fukuoka, they usually mean Fukuoka City, but there is also Fukuoka Prefecture. Fukuoka Prefecture includes a lot more cities, such as Kasuga City and Onojo, and even Kokura and Kurume are actually part of Fukuoka Prefecture.

Kasuga Park is a park in Kasuga City. The place I live now is at the border where Fukuoka City, Onojo, and Kasuga City meet, so it’s relatively far from the city center and there are correspondingly fewer tourists. Although getting to Hakata is a bit inconvenient (the JR rapid train is only one stop, but it takes about 10 minutes to bike to the station), I really like the atmosphere here and the just-right level of comfort. It’s neither too remote nor too noisy.

I wanted to take some photos of Kasuga Park, but maybe my skills aren’t quite there yet because I really couldn’t find anything especially good to shoot. Looking back, my favorite is this one taken upward toward the sky.

I used to think that if something was good to eat, I had to look for it in Fukuoka City—Tenjin, Hakata, Nishijin, and the like. Sure, the food was good, but it was really expensive.

What I’ve discovered recently is that if you look a little farther out at the right time, you can still find surprises. There are a few restaurants up the slope outside Kasuga Park, and everything I’ve tried so far has been really delicious.

ザ スヌープ 春日店(THE SNOOUP)

This place is best known for its organic tomato soup and chicken—the soul of the whole restaurant is the soup base, and it’s amazing! It’s also not expensive.

そば処 武蔵 春日本店

This one is across from THE SNOOUP, and it serves soba dishes. I mentioned before that when Japanese people eat soba, they’re often more focused on appreciating the aroma of the soba itself, so after finishing the noodles, they’ll also order soba-yu to drink together with the dashi broth. Both the hot soba and zaru soba here are highly recommended, though personally I feel zaru soba better showcases the essence of soba.

If you order zaru soba, the shop will give you freshly grated wasabi, and eating it with the soba dipped in soy sauce is incredibly delicious—while enjoying the fragrance of the soba, you also get to experience the sharp kick of the wasabi. They have a soba and pork cutlet rice bowl set that’s very reasonably priced. The oden here is also very much recommended; it’s packed with flavor.