My first yattai

I've been meaning to have one for a long time, and on Thursday night I finally got around to visiting one of the many yattai stands around Kurume. Essentially portable noodles stalls, they provide quick, cheap and on the whole tasty grub for the late working salarymen, the night workers and the beer-addled foreigners on the way home from playing pool all evening.

I had a choice of places, and opted for the one with the yellow and see through curtain, for no other reason that it seemed a good idea at the time. Inside, it was how I expected - a little grotty, quite warm and rather like one of those lay-by portacabin cafes in England. A middle aged woman served me, and dealt me up some ramen with practiced ease. A tiny tv was in the corner, and another woman, obviously a friend of the owner rather than a customer, sneezed constantly as she watched.

500 yen. Not bad really, and it tasted good. It wouldn't win any awards, but at midnight and after a marathon of beer it did me just fine.