Hakata Old Town Area

This guide to the Hakata Old Town area in Fukuoka opens with an odd local custom: for two weeks every July, cucumber disappears from tables around here because its cut cross-section resembles a shrine crest. It traces that superstition to Kushida Shrine, founded in 757, and the three gods housed together under its roof, including the storm god whose emblem you find in the vegetable. Stand at the gate and you face all three at once, a guardian of the harbor, the sun goddess Amaterasu, and her brother Susanoo.