I thought that when the ship docked, we'd
then disembark. Nope. The ship docked and then we
waited hours for customs to open. The people in the
background must have known the drill.
The Fukuoka Terminal is nice, and we breezed through visas and
customs. One weird thing about the terminal: though it
receives international visitors, the terminal is without an ATM
that accepts international cards. Japan is the only
country I've been in since the ATM-age where most ATMs do not
allow international withdrawls. Only the machines at 7-11s
and at Japan Post will accept foreign cards. The
foreign exchange counter politely hands out a map to the nearest
7-11 for baffled visitors. I had to change a $20 bill for
bus fare.
To add to the difficulty, credit cards are not widely accepted
in Japan. Convenience stores, department stores, and
supermarkets pretty much exhausts the list. Weird because
in Korea even tiny little places had credit card machines.
