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The picture above is a night view of a street in Fukuoka, and the Asahi hotel (left of street), which on it's roof had the Ashai Beer Garden. Many hotels and other buildings had roof-top beer gardens, restaurants, or other types of entertainment.
Fukuoka was a medium sized city when the base at Hakata was in existence. Today, it has a population of nearly 1,800,000 and is the eighth largest city in Japan. It is also a major tourist attraction, bringing in some 15,000,000 tourist annually.
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Fukuoka in the 1950's and '60's was a mixture of old and modern. Like the women at right, people dressed in both western and traditional clothing. Increasingly, business men and younger people turned toward the western style of dress. While the main streets were paved, many side and residential streets were not. Street vendors roamed the city, or set up their sidewalk business at certain locations, selling mostly prepared food much like the hotdog, tamale and popcorn stands once common in America. Private transportation consisted of walking or bicycle, with public transportation consisting of taxi cabs, buses and trains as the normal mode of transportation for the masses. |
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