What it felt coming back to Fukuoka

Hello from one of my favourite places! I’m in Fukuoka for half a day (I’m preparing to leave now) as a form of transit in a very odd travel plan that I made. And given that I lived in Fukuoka for 5 years, and it’s been 7 years since I moved back to Singapore and 5 years since I last visit, coming back was an emotional affair.

And it started even before I landed.

There is one direct flight to Fukuoka from Singapore and it departs at 1:20am. In the past, I was unable to sleep on planes and I would spend my whole trip watching shows (and always watching an episode of Bones while eating breakfast).

This time, I planned for two consecutive night flights, so I tried to rest. Unlike before, I actually managed to sleep. Sure, I woke up at one hour intervals but some sleep is better than no sleep. Which also meant that I didn’t have that much time to process my arrival.

But first, breakfast. There is no real reason to talk to you about breakfast except for the fact that I found the combination of the warm, unexpectedly crusty bun and cold, salty butter addictive. It was the simplest dish on my plate but probably my favourite. It was a breakfast basic and yet it tasted like an indulgence.

During this breakfast, I didn’t get to watch Bones. It’s not a surprise - the series finished years ago - but it did mean I had to find something else. The something else I found was From Book to Cook, Singapore’s National Library Board’s series that recreates vintage Singaporean recipes. Given that it’s produced by a library, I expected it to be a bit amateurish but I found myself very impressed and educated by it.

Eventually, though, I couldn’t escape the fact that we were arriving in Fukuoka. The closer we got, the strong the burning feeling in my chest, the tears pricking at the back of my eyes, and the sense of coming home to a place I could no longer call home. As we descended, I found myself wiping away tears and was reminded of the last time I cried on the flight back. That was a decade ago and for the much more mundane reason of having the change in pressure cause intense ear pain! In a way, that physical pain was much easier to bear.

Thankfully for me, the international terminal is undergoing improvement works, which is good because I might have really burst into tears if everything looked the same.

Originally, I had grand plans for this half a day, which revolved around:

1. Eating a fried sandwich

2. Eating teppanyaki

3. Buying pork tamago onigiri to eat on the plane back

4. Checking out ONE bag shop before/after buying onigiri

But that all changed after talking to my former finishing school principal, and I went back to one of my old haunts to meet her.

One of the clearest lessons I took back from Finishing School was Never to drink from a bottle when a cup was provided. Pre-Covid, the cup was glass but even post-covid, in the age of disposable cups for sanitary reasons, the cup comes with a handle (I imagine for etiquette reasons).

When I met up with my principal, or Sensei as I called her, it was clear we had a lot to catch up on. I generally send Sensei a Line message every new year but that’s about it. It feels a bit inadequate for someone who was so crucial to my time in Japan (finishing school was the other big thing I did apart from uni, and she was invaluable during my job hunting season) so I brought her a small, peacock feature brooch as a form of thanks.

In return, I experienced Japanese omotenashi.

We started with an AMAZING sushi lunch. I had initially suggested brunch but when asked what I wanted to eat, all I could come up with was:

“Erm… Japanese cuisine?”

So sushi it was and please take a look at how lovely all the pieces were. Plates and cups were all appropriate to the season (colour and if there were flowers on it; you can see a bit of that in the last picture of the fruits), and apart from the pleasing look of the sushi (please look at how cute the squid is), all of them engaged the other senses in the fragrance from the yuzu or the smell of miso, with different texture as we contrast the fish with the warm sushi rice, as well as the conversation with the chef.

We talked about how Japan is doing, about Japanese culture*, and with the chef: what fish was in season. Singapore has quite a thriving omakase scene right now, but nothing beats having something seasonal as you experience the seasons. Plus the combination and balance of flavours (not to mention that because this shop is established, it’s given first pick of the best seafood available here) was far above what I’ve had in the Singapore (admittedly also because I can’t afford the most expensive dining).

And at the end, my Sensei went above and beyond as she gifted me a birthday present on top of the lunch. I arrived with complicated feelings - this is a place I really love but which I no longer live in and I don’t know how I should feel about that - but the hospitality that I was shown reminded me that I’ll always have ties to Fukuoka and the people who live here.

*p.s. we had an interesting conversation about kimono and how it might be changing, so I would like to write a bit about that (especially since I was also listening to a podcast about the topic by a folklorist). Let me think about it!