NILS students learning Japanese language in summer program visited Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine, one of the famous shrines in Fukuoka, and Kyushu National Museum. Dazaifu is located close to both Ogori and Ohashi Campus. You can get there by easy access using Nishitetsu Railways.
Here are some comments from our students.
“This week’s school trip was to the nearby town of Dazaifu. At Dazaifu there is a large Shinto shrine, the Kyushu national museum, and a shopping street that sells lots of Omiyage. During out school trip the town and shrine were extremely busy, because we arrived at the same time as a lot of tourist buses. But we didn’t mind much, because we had also visited the previous week. If visiting maybe the afternoon is better to avoid the morning tourist trips? At the shrine you can try the Shinto traditions if you’ve not had the chance to do that before, including purifying yourself with water, and praying to the Kamisama at the shrine. You can also buy a fortune.
In the national museum there are many ancient treasures that you can see. For me the most interesting thing was some iron plates with kanji inscribed on them that looked the same as printed fonts (instead of cursive) – now I understand why the printed kanji look different – is because they needed to be engraved!
After visiting the museum, we went to a traditional cafe where we got to drink Mattcha and try a local Mochi-based sweet.” —Student from U.K.
“Wow!! It was so crowded that day! None the less, it was still a very fun and exciting trip. We got to go into the Asian art’s exhibit within the shrine. I was very thankful for that because I wanted to avoid the mosquito haha! The shrine itself was very beautiful but it made it more gorgeous seeing all the awesome history that was on display. I really love old art so of course I wanted to sketch what I liked down. To my surprise you’re not allowed to use pens or markers at the exhibit! I think they’re worried that people will draw on the artifacts. The museum employees gave me a special pencil and I got to draw the parts I wanted to remember. It was very exciting to finally be able to look at art again.” —Student from U.S.
“The visit to Dazaifu was very interesting. There was another shrine, this one dedicated to educational studies. There was also the Fukuoka Museum which had a lot of very interesting things to look at. It was very interesting and educational. The museum had a few interactive (educational video) sections to complement the Exhibitions. The Exhibitions themselves were very varied. All in all, it was very interesting.” —Student from U.S.
August 29th News, NILS Japanese language school.
