For me, travel is about eating delicious food, tasting new drinks, meeting local people, and experiencing scenery I have never seen before.
And while moving from one place to the next — from food to drinks, from people to scenery — I naturally end up walking through the streets.
So for me, travel is also about capturing the scenes I encounter along the street.
Karatsu is a small city with a population of about 110,000. In Korea, it would be roughly the size of cities like Nonsan or Miryang.
Places commonly seen when traveling in Japan — such as Don Quijote, Daiso, or large drugstores — are not very common here.
Fortunately, there is a large Matsumoto Kiyoshi drugstore at Karatsu Station. Daiso or Don Quijote are in completely different neighborhoods, so it is faster just to give up looking for them.
What I mean is that even though it is called a downtown area, it does not mean it is a crowded place. It simply refers to the neighborhood where restaurants and drinking spots are gathered together. You do not see many people walking around on the streets.
But the strange thing is that some restaurants are so busy that you cannot visit without a reservation.
In other words, the streets feel quiet simply because the population is small, but the popular places are packed with people.
Of course, it might also be because I visited in February. It is winter and also the off-season for tourism. Locals move around by car, and it is not a time when many tourists come.
In Karatsu, the area that could be called the downtown — the machinaka — lies between Karatsu Station and Oteguchi.
It roughly includes the districts of Kofukumachi, Nakamachi, Honmachi, and Kiwatamachi.
Each alley has its own name, which makes the area sound quite large, but in reality it is just four alleys put together. A very small district, really. If you look at it broadly, it is not even more than a single block.
I liked Karatsu’s machinaka(downtown) because it was small and quiet.
Within that quietness there was still a hidden liveliness, and because it was quiet, I could slowly walk and observe the streets. The atmosphere of this calm countryside city felt completely different from that of large and bustling cities.
I hope the feelings I had there are conveyed to you through these photos.
And who knows — maybe they will make you want to visit Karatsu someday.
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