TacoCat’s Travels #102 (Japan 4.0: Fukuoka): Chillin' with LINE Friends 🐻🐥

Hey Hive/Steemit!

So if you didn't catch the last couple of posts, we're currently on a journey in Fukuoka that we went on back in May 2017! Neither of us had ever been to that part of Japan before and since there were some cheap flights we decided to go explore a new region together! Here we go!

Last week, we finished up exploring the Arita Porcelain Park, seeing the replica village they built and how the actual porcelain was made was actually really cool! But with no one else around the village was a little creepy.

Anyway, after that we made our way back to the station and returned to Fukuoka once again! It really felt like we traveled back in time and the bus journey back to Fukuoka was us going back to modern times. But our day was far from over so let's go!

26 May 2017. Friday.

One of the first things we saw when we returned to Fukuoka was this huge Apple store! That's when I knew for sure we were back in the city. This was definitely miles apart from the Porcelain Park.

But we were just walking along the street when we came across one of our favourite stores!

If you didn't know, Sean and I love the LINE Friends characters, especially Sally! So we always make it a point to stop by a LINE Friends store whenever we're nearby, and we just happened to chance upon this one! How lucky!

And what a huge store it was too! I think the only other outlet we went to was the one in Harajuku and that one was pretty small, with a secret basement where we took a photo with Brown on his birthday!

But this particular store in Fukuoka had 3 floors! So I was excited to see what they had! The Harajuku store actually had some very nice decorations and prints up on the walls so I was excited to see what this store looked like as well.

Let's head in!

The layout of this store is pretty similar to the Harajuku one, in that it's narrow and deep with merch in the middle and along the wall.

And man, was there a lot of merch! I was so tempted to buy all the Sally stuff! I really liked the street-style interior though; with the graffiti art on the brick walls and the floor made to look like a road. It was so cool!

I really liked this wall with the art, and there were these cute sally headbands so you just know what we had to do:

The store was definitely really deep though, with so much stuff!

Thankfully this store wasn't as crowded as the Harajuku one, and we managed to get a nice photo with the huge Brown after a little bit.

I think they have these big Brown plushies at the front of every LINE store but I've only ever been to one other one so don't take my word for it. He is really eye-catching though, and makes for an excellent mascot that's for sure.

Even the stairs were really nicely decorated, with a huge Sally on the wall!

We went up to the second floor and there were soo many different kinds of snacks and treats up here!

There was also an instagram standee that was a little worse for wear. And unfortunately you couldn't see Sally if you took a photo straight on so we had to take from this angle instead. But it's alright.

There was a bunch of cute apparel there too! Mostly kids apparel though, but man I would totally wear that fast food sweater if they had that for adults!

This wall was so cute too! You could tell they went for a cafe style vibe for this floor just from this alone. Well that, and all the snacks on display.

There was just so much cool merch! And all the designs were so cute!

And this was especially fitting since we just came from Arita Porcelain Park! These designs are so awesome and cute!

And this is why they had a cafe vibe for this floor - because there was an actual cafe up here!

The menu itself is actually quite limited and we didn't end up buying anything since I wasn't in the mood for sweets.

I was kinda tempted to try that mango bottle though, until I saw that it was a latte. Neither of us are really coffee drinkers so we passed on it.

The snacks were so cute though! I think I wouldn't want to eat it anyway.

Especially the little sally macaroons!

The cafe itself was also nicely decorated, and they had LINE Friends' versions of the famous vinyls on the wall! How neat!

I actually really like all these prints too! If only they sold them as well!

We headed up towards the highest floor and the staircase here was decorated in a more Japanese style, with a ramen shop by Moon:

And an izakaya by Boss:

And a supermarket with those deliciously iconic strawberries!

However, when we got to the third floor it was something totally different!

I'm not very familiar with this character but I think his name is Usamaru! I've seen stickers and gifs of him around and he's pretty cute too.

I didn't realise they had a partnership or something though, but I guess his stickers are on LINE as well.

But man there were more cool posters here too!

I love all these prints!

I took these in the hope that I can recreate them in Procreate so I can make these my wallpapers. But if you know of where I can get these legit, do let me know!

We did end up buying a couple of small things of course, but I think I did a good job controlling my buyer's impulse.

After that we headed off to find some dinner since we were pretty hungry!

And we were walking along until we eventually found a Lotteria! Which is one of our favourite burger joints in Japan.

So I got a burger and Sean got a sandwich this time just to try something new!

They also had this smol katsu that came with his sandwich so we got to try that too! It was actually pretty good!

I got my usual bacon cheeseburger while Sean's sandwich was a beef one I think.? Either way, it was delicious as always! This Lotteria bacon cheeseburger is definitely one of my favourite burgers of all time! With a soft fluffy bun, nice beef patty, cheese and bacon; you just can't go wrong!

After dinner, we made our way to the nearby arcade! Unfortunately, this particular arcade's layout had the casino at the bottom floor and everyone smokes there so basically the entire Round 1 building stunk with smoke!

But we tolerated it to play a game of Luigi's Mansion (and fail again, man that game is impossible):

And Sean played a few songs on DDR:

After that we left to get some fresh air and at the station we saw this cool-looking stairscase advertising for Final Fantasy!

I'm not that familiar with the series since I've barely played FF3 but I thought the design was really cool!

And I guess that's all for now! Tune in next week where we explore another interesting place! Here's a teaser:

Yes this is actually in Japan >.<

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

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Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #101 (Japan 4.0: Fukuoka): Arita Pottery History!

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