Fukuoka and Star Wars III (at last!)
As usual with my last few trips I brought the rain with me to Fukuoka, the main city of Kyushu island. It was my first time there but we didn't really have a lot of time to do the tourist thing, since we were there to meet Uzuki's relatives and visit her family's cemetery on Sunday.
On Saturday we did manage to try some Hakata ramen and ate gyoza at the yatai (food stalls) along the river. We also did a bit of shopping at Canal City where I bought a couple of T-shirts for the impending hot and humid summer. Not much sight seeing because of the rain though :/
I also caught a late night "premiere" of Star Wars III which will be in full release this weekend in Japan. There are some really fantastic scenes but I felt the dialogue really needed some work; most lines and scenes - especially towards the end - seemed to be there to tie up loose ends or to explain away inconsitencies brought about due to events in Episodes I and II e.g. Senator Organa off-hand request to wipe C3PO's memory (why not R2D2 as well?). I think the worst scene of all was Darth Vader shouting out after being told <spoiler>he was the one who killed Padme</spoiler>; it looked like a scene from a bad B-Movie. When I returned to Tokyo Sunday night, Episode IV was shown on TV and it was really interesting to compare the two.
