Every October, Fukuoka fills up with digital nomads. Hundreds of us come for Colive Fukuoka, which runs for most of the month, and this year Kristina and I were two of them.

But the best day of the month didn't happen in the city. It happened 30 minutes up the train line, in a small town called Munakata.

Our guide was Izumi, who grew up there and moved back this year after nine years in Australia. She's planning to start running tours of her hometown, and we were her test group - a free trial run for Colive. So it was all very casual. Her mum, Noriko-san, drove us around all day, and by lunch it felt like we'd been adopted by a Japanese family.

The rest of the crew: Nicole, a Taiwanese living in Melbourne, and two Italian guys, Matteo and Nicola. Small world - Matteo was the marketing manager at Genki, the nomad travel insurance I've used on every trip for the past couple of years.

You can watch the video of the day here:

Tea, tatami and two altars

We got off at Tōgō Station early in the morning, and Izumi walked us the few minutes to her family home. Noriko-san had tea waiting.

The house was the real deal. Tatami floors, shoji paper screens, sliding doors and a garden outside. Izumi warned us not to poke the shoji - her nephews punch holes in them every visit, and her dad patches them up himself.

I wanted to live in one of these houses on the spot. So I asked the very Australian question: how much? Around 50 million yen these days, roughly A$500,000. Try finding that in Sydney.

Over tea, Izumi gave us a short history of Munakata, then a quick lesson in the Japanese you actually need: saying hello, saying thank you, ordering food and introducing yourself.

But what I couldn't stop looking at was in the living room. Front and centre, side by side, were a kamidana, a small Shinto shrine shelf, and a butsudan, the Buddhist altar for the family's ancestors, with portraits of those ancestors nearby. Two religions, one room. The family prays at both.

Wait, both?

Coming from the West, that blew my mind a bit.

Shinto is Japan's own religion, built around kami - spirits that live in mountains, rivers, rocks and islands. Buddhism arrived from Korea in the 6th century. Instead of fighting it out, the two just merged. Monks even explained that the kami were local forms of the Buddhas (honji suijaku).

These days Shinto handles weddings, babies and car blessings, and Buddhism handles funerals and the ancestors. Japan has more Buddhist and Shinto followers combined than it has people (nippon.com).

Europe went the other way. Once Rome turned Christian, Emperor Theodosius banned pagan sacrifices and temple visits in 391 (Wikipedia). Even the gentle approach was a takeover. In 601, Pope Gregory told the missionaries in England to keep the pagan temples, but throw out the idols and turn the old feasts into saints' days (his letter).

It comes down to one rule. Christianity asks you to worship one God only, and Shinto and Buddhism don't. To be fair, Japan had its limits too - it banned Christianity for over 250 years. But between its own two religions, there was always room on the shelf.

Munakata Taisha

Noriko-san drove us to Munakata Taisha next. It's surrounded by forest, and it really does feel a bit magical.

Izumi's grandfather and his company built the stone basin at the entrance, where you wash your hands and rinse your mouth before praying. Pretty cool thing to have in the family.

Tip: bring coins. A 5-yen coin is the luckiest offering, because go-en sounds like the Japanese word for a good connection.

Then came the stone game. People throw little stones onto the top of the torii gate for luck. If yours knocks someone else's off, you have to throw theirs back up too, so you could be there a while.

Throwing rocks at a sacred gate felt like vandalism, but apparently that's the whole point. Most of us either missed or sent our stones sailing straight over the top.

Two more rules from Izumi: walk on the left or right side through a torii, because the middle path is for the gods. And come on a weekday if you can - on a Sunday like ours, it was busy.

Round the side there's a whole car park just for car blessings, where priests bless cars for safe driving. That sounds random until you hear the backstory.

The island nobody can visit

Munakata Taisha is actually three shrines in a line across the sea, one for each of three sister goddesses. Hetsumiya, where we were, is on the mainland. Nakatsumiya is on Oshima island. Okitsumiya is on Okinoshima, a tiny island far out in the Genkai Sea (Wikipedia).

On a map, the three point toward Korea and China - the old sea route that made the local Munakata clan rich from the 4th century. The goddesses protected sailors. Now they protect drivers too.

Okinoshima is the wild one. The whole island is the shrine. For about 600 years people left offerings there, and archaeologists have found around 80,000 of them, every one a National Treasure.

Women were never allowed to land. Men could go once a year, after stripping off and purifying themselves in the sea. Since it became a UNESCO site in 2017, nobody goes at all except Shinto priests, who take turns living there 10 days at a time (Gulf News).

We didn't make it to Oshima this time. It's a short ferry ride away, and from a hall there you can pray toward Okinoshima and, on a clear day, actually see it (Mercure Munakata). That's on the list for next time.

Udon, cats and a kids' festival

Lunch was udon at Mikadukian, the kind of place you'd never find without a car - or a local. Chewy noodles, fresh seafood, and a few cats asleep on the roof the whole time we ate.

Out here, the best food is often hiding in a random house in the middle of nowhere. And it's cheap.

Then we got lucky. Akama-juku, an old Edo-period post town on the Karatsu road, was holding a kids' festival that day. Foreigners don't usually turn up to these, so we got a few looks.

We bought game tickets like everyone else. Super ball scooping looks easy - scoop bouncy balls with a paper net before it rips - but there's real skill involved. Kristina won a squishy toy fish and was very happy about it.

Taiko drummers played modern songs, kids danced, and we ate fresh mochi: yomogi (mugwort), red bean, and mitarashi in a sweet soy glaze.

This is my favourite kind of travel. No tourist bubble, just a local street on a Sunday.

Two sake breweries

Right on the same street is Katsuya Shuzo, a family sake brewery founded in 1790. It makes the sacred sake for Munakata Taisha, and its main label, Naranotsuyu, is named after the shrine's sacred oak (Crossroad Fukuoka). Ikuko Kawashima, the 8th generation, runs it with just five people. Everything is done by hand.

There was no tasting that day, but the owner showed us around anyway: the rice-washing area, rooms built with Edo-period wood, and a small door to a hidden passage straight out of Narnia.

Brewing starts at the end of October, once it gets cold. It already smelled good. I bet in winter it smells crazy.

To make up for the missing tasting, Noriko-san turned bartender and treated us to yuzu sake. So easy to drink. Very dangerous.

We still hadn't had a proper tasting, so we drove on to Izu Honten, which has been brewing here since 1717. It has thatched roofs, which surprised a few of us - we thought that was a European thing.

The brewery reopened in January 2026 with a slick modern sake bar (Crossroad Fukuoka). It's now part of the Kubara Honke group, the company behind Kayanoya dashi, and the original Kayanoya restaurant was actually inspired by Izu Honten's thatched roof (Data Max).

We tried a few sakes with snacks, played a lucky draw for gelato, and walked out with free soup stock. Fitting.

Coffee, croissants and the train home

We finished with coffee at a local café, then made a dash back to Tōgō Station.

On the way home, at Hakata Station, we grabbed mini croissants from Mignon - sweet potato, chocolate and plain. You can smell that shop from the other end of the station.

Visiting Munakata

  • Getting there: JR Kagoshima Line from Hakata to Tōgō Station, about 30 minutes.
  • Getting around: you really want a car, because everything is spread out.
  • Timing: shrines are quietest on weekdays, and Akama-juku is extra fun on a festival day.
  • Local guide: find Izumi on Instagram at @japan_local_experience or @izumiii.travel.
  • More of the day: Kristina wrote about it too, in A Slow Day in Munakata with a Local Guide.

My verdict on Munakata

For a place only 30 to 40 minutes from the city, Munakata blew me away. If it were in Sydney, it would just be another suburb. Here it's countryside, shrines, sake breweries, beaches and sacred islands.

Kristina said it felt like time stopped there, and I get it. Nobody was rushing anywhere, us included.

Next time, we're taking the ferry to Oshima. And if you want a local to show you around, ask Izumi.