Kobe Kobe I’m in Love

Mina-san konnichiwa.

So this week didn’t start well. By about 4 o’clock on Monday I was feeling terrible. My head was pounding, my sinuses were plugged and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Kaze desu. I had a cold how rubbish, right before all my time off as well. I think I’d just finally run myself into the ground with the long working hours. That or I’d just not been getting enough vitamin C. It’s so hard to get hold of fresh fruit in Japan so I may have been lacking. I’ve basically been chugging the various vitamin C/ginseng /ginger/ anything else that promotes good health, drinks that I could get my hands on, and there are a lot of em.

Anyway I spent most of Tuesday feeling pretty rubbish as well so I wasn’t much help to Daewoong whilst he was mounting samples for his beamtime next week. I helped where I could but my focus was totally shot. Needless to say I was in bed early that night. Not before chowing down on some home made Oden and a dorayaki, essentially a stuffed Japanese pancake.

After a good 10 hours of sleep I awoke on Wednesday feeling refreshed and ready to tackle an exciting couple of days. I’d made plans with one of my colleagues, Sam, to go and visit Kobe for two days during golden week. Kobe had left a good impression on me from my previous visit so I was keen to check it out.

We set out about 9ish and rather foolishly took the wrong train, costing us an extra 900yen, ouch. There are so many different kinds of train running in the same direction its easy to get mixed up, at least that's my story and I’m sticking by it.

We arrived in Sannomiya station, the main JR station in Kobe and it opens up into the main shopping area. Obviously we weren’t sure where we were going and we blundered our way into an  imported goods shop. It was mental seeing things that cost pennies back home at ridiculously high prices, particularly porridge and unbelievably corned beef, both of which cost over a fiver it was unreal. To my guilt I did buy a jar of peanut butter but that is an essential part of my diet. Sadly I was smooth but it’ll have to do.

Our next port of call was the city hall. Sam had read in his guide book that you could take the lift up to the 24^th floor and  get a great view of the city. The  guide book most definitely delivered. The view was spectacular. It’s amazing to think that just over 15 years ago the entire city was pretty much rubble after a huge earthquake struck.

Kobe is actually pretty famous for it's architecture. Not only the new modern craziness of Port Island and Rokko Island, two districts built entirely on artificial islands, but also the old. Foreign traders have frequented the port of Kobe for centuries and as such there are many structures inspired by overseas design. Amongst these are a nice little Chinatown and many European style structures. It was really odd to be walking through the ubiquitous concrete tower blocks and suddenly come across a red brick building.

So view enjoyed we set off for our next destination a Sake brewery. We grabbed a couple of bento boxes for a quick lunch on the train. These things are awesome, cheap, convenient and delicious. Not only that but some of the plastic containers are actually really nice to look at, it seemed such a shame to have to throw it away really.

We departed the train 15 minutes later and set out for the brewery. Actually there were three different breweries in the area but according to Sam’s book this one was the nicest for visitors. On the way we came across a rather pleasant surprise.  The next street we turned down was absolutely packed with people in green jackets puling a huge cart.

“Kore wa nan desu ka?” We inquired. “Danjiri” was the response. I still wasn’t sure so I took a piccie on my fancy new phone and sent It to Yuko. It turns out ‘Danjiri’ is a cart pulling festival celebrated by towns all across Japan. The cart itself is called a ‘Mikoshi’ and is a kind of portable shrine that is hauled around the local area ending at a temple. The Mikoshi was very ornate and also full of drums and bells banging out a rhythm specific to the area. It looked like a lot of fun, particularly when the cart had to be turned around a corner. Totally unexpected and just the kind of thing I love running into.

We stayed and watched a while and then carried on to our original destination. The breweries museum was free to look around and their leaflet was in English thankfully.  The displays were all about he old method of brewing Sake and it was pretty interesting. Although sadly none of the signs were in English, a few explanatory videos were so we could at least get some explanation. The process itself seemed to be highly involved and I can see why good Sake is so highly prized. At the end I picked up a bottle and a bar of soap to give to Bessho-san and Masamoto-san as presents to say thanks.

After having a quick free taste of some Sake we went for a stroll through the streets to try and find a traditional Japanese park. No luck sadly but we did find something better.

I’m normally a fan of travelling alone I must admit. I like the freedom of going wherever, doing whatever and not having to worry about the other person. Fortunately Sam and I are fairly like minded so we didn't really have to worry about each other. Anyway he spotted a sign advertising a backpacking hotel that I’d never of picked up on, I’m so dozy so its nice to have an extra set of eyes.

The place was called Kobe Dears backpackers house. It was run, amazingly, by a guy from Leeds called Andrew. He’d come out here for a month 6 years back to visit some friends and had loved it so much he’d stayed. As it was golden week they were rammed and in fact had only one bed left. He did however offer to put a futon on the floor in the room so we could both stay and h’d knock 500yen off the price. An awesome deal that we weren’t going to pass up, there was no way we’d find anywhere cheaper and I was cool with sleeping on the floor. Andrew was dead nice and gave us some pointers on where to go, what to see, where to eat e.t.c.

So back on the train bound for Sannomiya and into the city centre. We decided it’d be nice to walk through the main shopping streets, through Chinatown and then into Portland, where I remembered there being plenty of restaurants. The shopping street through up a few surprises, namely a rather strange sign for a shop called love boat and a branch of Lush, I was actually mega surprised by that.

China ton was rammed with people. It is only a little square but it was heaving. There were street vendors everywhere selling all kinds of food and omiyage (souvenirs). The sights, sounds and smells were actually a little overwhelming. We passed a really cool little square that had statues of each animal of the Chinese zodiac. It would have been nice to stay and have a look but to be honest there were so many people in such a small place that there wasn’t actually that much visible. I did manage to snag a couple of sesame coated rice balls though, cheap and tasty.

And so to Portland. It wasn’t too tricky to find if I’m being honest, the large Kobe port tower sticks out a fair amount haha. We had a few major road o navigate but there are plenty of bridges passing over them, possibly not the most practicle way of crossing but certainly very cool. The tower itself cost about 600yen to go up, it was nice to look at but the views across the harbor at the base were good enough so we figured it just wasn’t worth the money.

We crossed over the water towards another shopping complex called mosaic. It seemed like harbor land was the place to be as there was all kinds going on. There were some Gaijins (foreigners) dressed up in clown gear performing magic and making balloon animals for the kids at boat terminal.  Just before mosaic we encountered a rather decent female fronted J-rock band.

I couldn’t help but stay and watch for a while. Someone had asked me about the music scene in Japan and I honestly didn’t have a clue. These guys were playing sort of funk infused indie, up-tempo and I guess catchy if I knew what they were saying. Oku no hito (lots of people) had stopped to watch so me and Sam just joined the crowd. They also had a troupe of fire dancers with them and the band went into a nice funk  groove for about ten minutes whilst the fire dancers did their thang.

Eventually our bellies started to tell us they’d had enough and we moved on to Mosaic. Like Chinatown this place was rammed, I guess cos it was about dinner time and it was the major food court. We couldn’t find anywhere that was a) yasui (cheap) or b) with free tables, every restaurant had massive queues outside. There was also an unusual number of Italian restaurants. I definitely wasn’t up for that, why would I want to go to an Italian in Japan? I guess it’s novel for the local people. The only free place was one selling Kobe beef, which at around 4000 yen a dish was out of our price range.

We turned back towards sannomiya as there were bound to be plenty of places to grab some scran. We followed our noses and walked into a little Izakaya on the border of the main street. Well now a predicament. ‘Dare ga ii desu ka?’ what was good? We had no idea since we couldn’t read the menu haha. The owner however was this sweet old lady who was an absolute anglophile and apparently loved LFC (boo hiss). She seemed absolutely thrilled that foreigners had chosen to eat at her restaurant and helped us out. Her English wasn’t bad actually.

We got Tori-don, a one-bowl dish of cooked chicken, rice, cabbage, nori and a raw egg. Everything is prepared individually and then you mix it in and consume. Delish, the flavors were amazing, simple but very hearty and clear. We also got these weird stuffed chicken wings. They were taken off the bone, stuffed with ginger and spring onion, then the bone was put back in like a stick and the whole thing fried in a light batter, very tasty.

Gochisosama deshita (thank-you for the food). After a final brief exchange with the old lady we set off to explore Kobe a bit more by night. We headed toward Ikuta Jinja (shrine) which is apparently one of the oldest n Japan. Like all Shinto shrines it’s an amazing piece of architecture. Sadly it wasn’t open at night but it was lit up fantastically.

We then started to make our way back towards Sannomiya station to get back to the hostel. Kobe is just as cool by night and we managed to find ourselves in the main clubbing district. There seems to be a lot going on here, so I may have to find someone to hit the clubs with.

Right outside the station entrance we spotted a group of people having a Jam session. They had guitars, both acoustic and electric and a few djembe’s. They were playing some really great, improvised jazzy stuff and we took a seat with the locals and stayed and watched. I reckon we were there a few hours as these guys were awesome. After us watching for about 20 minutes or so one of the drummers invited me to join in. I couldn’t say no. It’d been ages since I’d played a djembe and I’d forgotten how fun it was.

Sam had gotten talking to one of the group called Shintano whilst I’d been drumming away. His English was amazing even though he’d apparently never left Japan. He’d been with the group for a while and said he loved the way music brought people together. I totally agree it doesn’t matter your origin, rhythm move a people in the same way. He showed us the way to the station making sure we didn’t meet the last train and even taught us a cool phrase ‘Ureshii aitte’ I’m glad we met.

So back to the Hotel and it turned out that Andrew had made a mistake and the bed we’d booked was in fact occupied. Luckily for us he had left the staff bedroom open for us and said we could stay there for the night. So we in fact ended up with even better bedding arrangements. Myself and Sam had a bit of fun trying to converse with some of the other lodgers in very broken Japanese, I think we managed to communicate a bit and it was a lot of fun practicing.

The next morning we were up early as it was time to scale Rokko-san, after a very improvised breakfast of what I can only describe as giant sugar puffs. Ah watashi wa yama ga daisuke desu (I love mountains). Japan is interestingly about 70% mountain so I plan on scaling as many as possible. First things first we had to get to the foot where we could take a cable car up Cheating I know but most major mountains in Japan are fairly inhabited so there are plenty of roads, buses and what not going up. Plus cable cars are pretty fun.

The view from the top was incredible, even better than the city hall. We could see right out across the bay and into the sea. I couldn’t help but take a step back and gaze out for a while it really was that stunning.

From the cable car station we set off for the summit where there was apparently an amusement park of some sort? Only in Japan right. The weather was gorgeous and I was glad to be out in it getting some much-needed vitamin D. In fact so nice was the weather I decided to tell the next person I came across so. ‘Ii tenki desu ne’ (good weather isn't it). Never underestimate the power of that phrase as a conversation starter in any language.

In fact the old man I got chatting t, again very broken Japanese, was quite the traveler. He had been all over China, out to Canada and all around Europe to. From what I could tell he shared my love of Italy and particularly liked Venice.

 He also pointed out an interesting Buddha statue to us, which was apparently erected to commemorate people who had been involved in a massive airplane crash around the time of the Hanshin earthquake. He claimed he knew a shortcut and soon had us trekking of the beaten path.

The summit was, unusual. As far as I could tell this place was little Switzerland, down to the cheesy swiss music. It was really quite bizarre. In fact the whole of Rokko-san it turns out is a tribute to Switzerland. All the souvenir shops seemed to be selling European memorabilia at outrageous price. It just made me giggle really. We wandered around the summit for a bit, stopping to chow down on some onigiri and then set off to explore a bit more.

The mountain itself is beautiful although It was interspersed with some very random things. An amusement park as I’d said previously, a giant Swiss style lodge and an alpine garden. I couldn’t help but chuckle, most f the tourists where Japanese and they all seemed absolutely enthralled. I guess it’s like people from the west going to a Chinatown.

We reached a cross roads and due to the time myself and Sam finally parted. I was keen to push on to the next mountain in the chain, Maya-san, but Sam needed to head back down, he had some shopping to get done in, of all places, the local Ikea. We agreed to meet at the station at around 6 o’clock, no problem we thought.

Well this is where my trouble started. I carried on following my little map to the next ‘theme park’ called Kobe pastures. It was essentially one giant farm. I think in the heavily industrialized Japan this was somewhat a novelty but again I just didn’t see the appeal. According to my map however there was a temple and a lake on my way to Maya-san so I had that to look forward to.

I reached a fork in the road and started to become confused. The road signs seemed to have no rhyme or reason and I couldn’t make out which way to go. I asked someone the way, to which I was told ‘migi,migi,migi’ (keep going right) and that it’d be about 2 hours on foot. So I did just that.

The directions proved to be wrong however and 2 hours later and 8 miles away I was actually on the wrong mountain. Classic Marcus moment methinks. I lucked out and caught the last bus outside of some park, I’d not seen another bus stop in the entire 2 hours of walking, and made it back to Sannomiya station just in time. What a day. Thank god the weather was good and the view were great.

Kobe mata aimashou (lets meet again Kobe)

Mata kondone Mina-san.

P.s you my note there aren’t many photos of Rokko-san, that's because I’m a chump and forgot to charge my camera, the battery died Wednesday night. Live and learn.

Do-youbi, Zoo-youbi, Suki-youbi

Well with a bit of free time I've actually managed to pack enough things in for an early blog post. Expect a bit more over the next week as Golden week is coming up. Essentially three holidays occur back to back in the middle of this week so no working. Awesome.

Onwards, or rather backwards, to Saturday. Konshu no doyoubi (this Saturday) Spring8 opened it's gates to the local public. It was awesome and no I'm not embarrassed to think that. Normally coming into work on a weekend would be rubbish, but with all the displays and the huge crowds of people it was in fact quite fun. It was definitely a new way to experience where I work anyway. I went along as a member of the general public rather than an employee so I got to wander freely, and grab some freebies to.

For the most part I didn't have a clue what was going on, given that all the signs were in Japanese, the things that I did understand where a little bit too basic. There were a lot of kodomo (children) at the event so I could read some of the signs meant for them. I also joined in with the hanko (stamp) trail. Basically you had to get a stamp from each of the major facilities. They were all designed around Spring8's mascot, Dr. Nyan. His name comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for a cats meow. It was for the kids but I'm a big kid at heart. I also picked up a Dr. Nyan comic, which I'll hopefully be able to read in a few months.

Right more serious stuff now. What this open day did allow me to do was have a chat with some other people working on the ring and finding out about their research. There were some really cool exhibits to see including an ultrafast shutter camera taking pictures of a droplet hitting water and a chance to have a go on the hovercraft used in the construction of the XFEL. I also got chatting with one of the designers of the CCD detectors for the XFEL. It was interesting and hopefully I'll be seeing them in action at the end of September.

CCD (or charged coupled device) are a system of converting photons of light into discrete digital signals through the movement of an electrical current. They are composed of a thin photoactive, crystal, generally a few atoms thick, of some kind of inorganic compound. In most cases this is silicon that has been 'doped'. This term means that the silicon is bound to another atom, something like boron or Galium. These atoms slightly disrupt the electronic configuration of the silicon atoms, each crystal will now have one too many or too few electrons.

When light hits the crystal it excites the electrons and given enough energy they can 'jump' from those regions where there are too many electrons to those where there are too few. This occurs many times until eventually the electrons will reach an electron detector. The relationship between the number of electrons excited and the intensity of the light is discrete and so a photon’s brightness as well as its position can be recorded.

These things are a great bit of technology and are in fact part of technology behind digital cameras. I'm not going to lie though I don't fully understand how they detect colour. For me though I'm only concerned with the black and white as this is what is used to record a diffraction pattern in structural biology.

Nerdy bit over. I had a good wander round the facility before heading home to make my first homemade Japanese Kare risu (curry rice). The Japanese are mad on instant curry, it's everywhere and there are so many brands. This stuff is a bit more like school dinner curry than one from an indian restaurant. It comes in a block and you break a bit off into boiling water to make your sauce. I did all right this time and didn't burn anything.

I also took the opportunity to grab some more sweeties. Soba boro is a Japanese biscuit, akin to a biscotti, made with buckwheat flour sugar and eggs. They aren't too sweet and have a nice crunch o not a bad little snack, though a bit heavy on the egg. I actually found them to be a really good breakfast food and have them mixed in with my cereal. The other thing I picked up was anko ice-lollies. I think anko is used for pretty much any sweet thing you can think of over here, plus it has a nice creamy texture and I do so miss ice-cream.

Next morning I was up a little later than planned. Oh insomnia my old friend how I have missed thee. Not too sure why, possibly a dicky tummy, but my sleep has been rather disturbed the past couple of days. Anyway a quick cup of ocha and some breakie sorted that out.

I’d agreed to meet Yuko in Himeji to get my phone off her. Sadly no frizzers due to poor weather in Osaka, obviously these guys haven’t heard the phrse if it ain’t raining it ain’t training.  She didn’t want to meet up till about 1:30pm but I was restless so I left early for a wander around Himeji. I picked up some supplies for home as my cupboards where getting bare.

One interesting thing I got was instant Oden mix. Oden is a type of Japanese street food. It’s essentially a stew and similar to scouse back home you just put anything in. I’d been trying to get hold of it all over the place but hadn’t managed to fnd anywhere selling it. Turns out it’s actually more of  winter food so I’ll have to settle with homemade for now. I also grabbed a quick snack of some fish and yams from the food counter. Fresh cooked food has a big section in Japanese supermarkets and is well worth checking out for a cheap lunch. 

 Right so after partaking in some retail therapy, including buying more wagashi,  a small cake called an obanyaki which was filled with sweet white bean paste and more dango, I went back to the station to meet Yuko. Watashi wa itsumo okurete iru (I’m always late). Fortunately so was Yuko, so she didn’t notice. I got my phone, hurray, and it has more functions than I can even get my head around. The  salesperson had also thrown in a free bento box because it had taken so long to register the phone, what did I say before about kindness.

So now we had to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. With Himeji castle under reconstruction I wasn’t too sure if it was worth while going there however I had noticed a zoo nearby so I suggested that. I do so love animals and it turned out to only be 200 yen so why not ey. It only looked like a small zoo so I figured there wouldn’t be too much to see. Oh how wrong I was.

I’m not going to lie I was pretty horrified. It was a small zoo I was right about that, but to compensate it just had very small enclosures. Chisai, sugoku chisai (Small, too small), was all I could keep on thinking. I really was shocked by the cultural differences toward animal cruelty. They even had two polar bears, one of which was clearly going mental wandering around in circles. For someone brought up with Chester zoo this was a big shock and no one else seemed to bat an eyelid.

Still I did have some fun. It was nice at least to learn some animal names in different languages. Yuko told me the Japanese names and I tried to explain some of the Latin names to her, thank you A-level biology. A particularly interesting one was the lemur which in Japanese is Kitsune-saru, meaning fox monkey. Looking a little closer I could kind of see it actually

There were some Japanese animals on display such as a Kitsune (Japanese fox) which is a lot more slight than it’s European counterpart. I also saw some Japanese badgers and Tanuki. These things are commonly termed raccoon dogs though they aren’t that closely related to either. They have been involved in Japanese folklore for centuries and you see statues of them everywhere. Apparently they are shape shifters and very mischievous and there are many ancient tales of them playing tricks on humans.

We actually ended up spending a good two and a half hours wandering the zoo. Some other points of interest where, the very amusing penguin apartment, also a sign outside the chimpanzee enclosure warning of poo bombs. Eventually auld lang syne began to play so it was time to go.

Yuko couldn’t think of anything to do next, but I had a plan. I’d brought a Frisbee with me and the weather had improved, so perfect chance for a throw around in Himeji park. It’s such a shame that the Frisbee team here dissolved it’s such a nice space and we easily whiled away an hour and a half just throwing about. Yuko has a wicked backhand and is a great catch. Can’t wait to actually play some real ultimate with here in the future.

I was determined not to miss the last bus home this time so I left at 6  arriving in Aioi with plenty of time to spare. In fact I had enough time to grab some omiyagi (souvenir sweets) for the receptionists back at spring8 to thank them for helping me out with my money woes.  On the bus back I bumped into Sam who had been to Himeji as well. Sounded like he’d had a great time and hopefully we’ll be doing a bit of exploring together during golden week. He’s lived all over the world, France, Mauritius, England and America so I think I may have found a kindred spirit, bitten by the travel bug.

That's all for now.

Mata kondone

Kindness and Cockups. Kobe and candy.

Phew what a week. Shigoto, shigoto, shigoto (work, work, work). Sadly our beam time has not thrown up any concrete information so it seems I spent almost 60 hours awake for nothing. Ah well it was our first time so I wasn’t particularly hopeful. I have to say I’m so glad I was into Lego and Mechano as a child as I seem to have spent a good portion of the last week with an Alan key in hand. As Liam pointed out to me experimental hutches are like giant Mechano sets.

Anyway other than that this week hasn't been massively interesting. Besides work I got my alien residency card, which has opened the door to some cool things, namely I could now get a keitei (mobile phone). I have also got my hand on a nice road bike for…FREE. Unbelievable right.

So that brings me on to the title of the blog. Kindness. The level of generosity and patience I’ve experienced from people here has been unbelievable. After mentioning I needed a bike Ignace, the French guy I mentioned earlier, sent me a template message to send out to inquire about a second hand bike. I got a response nearly straight away, and all though I insisted on paying, the kind person offering the bike to me would have none of it. Sugoi (amazing).

This also brings me back onto my first cock-up, so it turns out that mailing list I used to send out the message shouldn’t be used in this way. I got a short sharp telling off. Still we don’t learn unless we make mistakes and I always resolve to only make them once.

So the next kindness, you can see a theme emerging here ey. The money I had brought with me finally ran out on Tuesday and due to an error processing my bank account I had no bankcard with which to process my wages. Bit of an issue since I’d hoped to go away on Friday with the free day holiday. Fortunately for me the secretarial staff where amazing and managed to get me my flight reimbursement money in cash. I do believe I owe them some cake.

Speaking of cake I thought I’d take a brief moment to talk about sweets. Someone the other day asked me what the sweets were like in Japan and I sadly couldn’t tell them. As I may have mentioned before I’m a bit funny with food and I have a horrible feeling I’ve lost some weight since I’ve been here. So I decided to investigate Japanese sweets further. Traditional Japanese sweets are called Wagashi and here are a few I’ve come across so far.

Mochi: Essentially a ball of glutinous rice flour covered in sugar and usually stuffed with something sweet. Most of the time this is Anko, or sweet red bean paste. Whilst not overly sweet these things have an amazing gooey texture and I can’t get enough of em.

Dango: Similar to mochi but stickier and on, well, a stick. Kind of like a sweet kebab.

Yokan: These are blocks of agar mixed with Anko and sugar. It’s similar to jelly but not quite so rubbery. Very tasty.

Taiyaki: This is again filled with anko. It’s essentially fried pancake like batter pressed around anko in the shape of a fish. I think they do other filling as well. You seem to be able to get them in many street markets.

There are also many cookies, including these nice black sesame seed ones I picked up yesterday. Fruit jellies and hard sweets to, I’m a big fan of the raw cane sugar things. And of course many odd flavors of chupa chup, including matcha (green tea) flavor.

Ok so yesterday. Now this was a fun day. I’d been emailing back and forth with a member of Osaka’s Frisbee team called Yuko for a while and had found out she was also into climbing. Yuko is a lot of fun. She’s very lively, I think that may be down to her job as a personal trainer, and is also very curious about England. She had told me she new of a nice place to climb in Kobe so we agreed to meet up on Friday as it was a national holiday.




On my way to the bus stop I noticed there was a festival going on just own the road from my flat. Had to go have a look around really. I’m not sure exactly what the occasion was, possibly just because it was Showa day, but it was pretty fun. There were loads of food stores, people selling locally grown goods and also some displays from the local school kids. The music and dancing was a lot of fun to watch.

I stayed for a bit but I was getting on for time and didn’t want to keep Yuko waiting. I set off on the now familiar trip to the station and took the train to Kobe. Unlike Osaka, Kobe station was a lot smaller and I easily found Yuko. We wandered for about ten minutes to the rock gym, introducing ourselves a bit more along the way.

The gym, called Kobe rock garden, was pretty small but lots of fun. It was all bouldering but that's not a problem, it was a god way to get back into climbing. I was a little confused at first. The grading system and how the routes were planned where very different to hat I’m used to. Also the starting footholds weren’t so great, but I eventually got the hang of the place (no pun intended).

Ah it was fun to be climbing again and it was nice to do it with many other enthusiasts. Although they didn’t speak much English the staff were very helpful and I think explaining climbing moves transcends language. Yuko got chatting to a couple there that were about our level and we all tried problems together. It was fun and there was much cheering whenever one of us reached the top hold.

After a good two and a half ours of bouldering I was getting pretty hungry. We got changed and Yuko led me down to the main shopping area of Kobe on the port. It seems really nice don there, much less busy than Osaka and actually reminded me of home a bit. I think I’ll have to look around Kobe again when I’m not so rushed, there seems to be quite a bit to do.
So onto the food. Yuko picked out a hamburger restaurant with a great view of the river. Hamburgers aren’t normally my thing, I’m not so good with beef, but it seemed impolite to disagree with my host so I just went with it. Now in Japan hamburgers are done a bit differently. As you can see from the picture they’re generally served like a stew with a thick onion gravy. It was good but a bit heavy and I think it sat on my stomach a little ☹.

Right so well fed we had a good chat about loads of things, mainly travelling and Frisbee though. Lots of talk about Frisbee in fact. Yuko told me all about a tournament coming up in July which should be cool. Apparently in Japan, and contrary to what I’d been told, things are the same as Britain. There is a real struggle to get women playing the sport. Yuko it seems really wants to expand the team in Osaka so they can enter more tournaments around Japan. I’ll have to help with that I think .

We left the restaurant and had a quick wander around the nearby shopping mall. I had asked her earlier about getting hold of a phone and noticed some signs up in one of the shops we passed. In we went and after a few initial exchanges we realized the salesperson spoke perfect English. I managed to get myself a good deal on a 2-year contract, half price with the 2-year contract, so I’m sorted phone-wise. Or rather I would be but my train was actually due to leave before the phone would be registered eep.

I had planned o meet up with Yuko again on Sunday anyway so she offered to pick up my phone whilst I legged it to the train station. Now I realize that this was a bit of a silly thing to do given I’d only met this person once, but my experiences so far have only been positive, plus as I’ve sad before Frisbee players are generally all right. So off I dashed.

Alas it was for nothing I missed the last bus home and had to get a taxi, which was outrageously expensive. Cock-up. It probably would have just been cheaper to stay in Kobe. Ah well never mind. Anyway I’ll finish there. Currently there is an open day going on at work but that's for another post. I’ll leave you all with a few pictures of my home cooking, including something I have dubbed okonomibreakfast, okonomiyaki batter mixed with fruit.

Dewa matta mina-san.