So I look at the timestamp for the last post and realise that it's been a long time since last I wrote anything for the blog.
Sorry about that.
But I do have some good stuff for you today. For you see, although it is now about three weeks late, today I will tell you about Team Pete and Steph's trip to Kobe.
There it is, look.
Anyway, as you can probably see, the day was hysterically, abominably hot, and so upon meeting Connor at Sannomiya Stationwe decided to head north, to Shin Kobe, and the cool shade of a nearby mountain. Apparently there are supposed to be wild boar in those parts, though we didn't see any. We did, though, see three waterfalls. Here's one.
Next, not wishing to take the subway more than was necessary, we made our way south into the foreign district of Kobe. By foreign, I mean that it was where all the filthy gaijin such as yours truly used to hang out back in the day, and as such there as a definite sense of trying to replicate that age-old 'foreign flavour'. Not a Japanese thing in sight. Wishing to delve deep into the depths of Kobe life, we decided to sample some of this flavour, starting with a British House.
Really reminded us of home. It had been too long since last I set eyes on something as commonplace as a suit of armour... The house itself was supposed to be a copy of one Sherlock Holmes' own house, and as you can imagine film merchandise was flipping everywhere, but it was still an interesting place to visit. It had two bars! Two!
Next on our little tour was the mysteriously named Ben's House, which offered not a single mite of information about just who this 'Ben' person was. We can tell you this, though: Ben was the most horrible human being on the planet. Stuffed hunting trophies as far as the eye could see, I had no idea hollowed-out elephant's feet could be put to so many uses. And what was his bedroom like? It had only been stolen piece by piece from some poor fellow living out in the forests of Africa, bed and all! This guy was a real piece of work, let me tell you. The last stop on the tour was a Panama house, which offered nothing in the way of Panamanese language translations, which was simply outrageous. Apparently people from Panama like boats and tiny Japanese houses.
Grabbing lunch at a nearby bakery, we headed to the harbour. Some interesting stuff to see on the harbour, including a section of road from Kobe's last big earthquake...
And one incredibly camp boat...
Kobe sure does have everything. The harbour was also the location of Connor and Pete's Epic Pokemon Battle. Maybe that's why I've taken so long to get all this up, maybe I was stalling because if I ever talked about it I'd have to mention the fact that I lost.
Garchomp, next time you see me, you'll wish you hadn't.
Got a bit of minor revenge, though, with the level-capped double battle, but when it comes to a pure, one-on-one battle I still need a bit of training. Next time, the result will be different.
On our way back towards the center of Kobe, we passed 'Harbourland', a cheeky little plastic amusement park, and in true tourist fashion we paid it a visit. Pretty run-of-the-mill, all things considered, though there were a couple of sweet highlights:
As you may have guessed, the ordeals of rolling around in giant balls left us tired and hungry. So, after passing by the arcade so Connor could win himself a Chopper hat, we made tracks to Fisherman's Market (right? Not Fisherman's Wharf? I can't remember...) which did fish and chips. Not real fish and chips, mind you, but it was a pretty close approximation. It was also superb.
By the time we left it was dark, so we took a stroll along the waterside to take in the night-time sights. Fire-jugglers, the Kobe Tower or whatever it calls itself, oh and that camp boat turned up again. Honestly very pretty stuff. Next was karaoke in the entertainment district followed by bed. Well, I say bed...
Actually not the worst night's sleep I've ever had. The matting was pretty soft, and I found myself easily able to get a few hours of solid sleep. What I was disappointed with, however, was that I had clearly overestimated Japanese manga cafes as being veritable shrines of online gaming and comics, and Manboo only lived up to one of those things. The computer was honestly a pile of junk compared to the shiny obelisk that was the average Japanese computer in my mind. The internet was slow, barely fast enough to catch the latest episode of Angel Beats, and there was not a single internet game installed on the stupid thing, except some kind of stupid board-game thing. I have higher expectations of the big cheese of the manga cafe world, Popeye, when I go there for a critical few hours at some point.
Anyway, then it was Sunday, and Kobe Matsuri time. If anything, Sunday was even hotter than Saturday, and this did not do my energy levels any favours. Nor did all the loud noises and people in bright costumes for that matter.
I honestly had no idea Kobe was a big samba city. No idea at all... After getting some Taiwanese icecream followed by some Japanese pasta, we looked around the city for the best part of the day before setting off back home to Kyoto, tired like nothing else. And we had school on Monday, too. Not the best of moods that night...
And that's it, really. Sunday wasn't really all that eventful, it was just a long day of samba-watching and being tired. But still, all things considered, Kobe rocked hard. I'l look forward to going there again some other time.
Thanks for reading.
...
Oh, and if you're wondering about the weeks in between, nothing really happened. A few essays, some speeches, and the culmination of a soap opera. Nothing worth mentioning.
***
日向、お前は本当の男だ。２Ｄじゃなかったら、お前の手を握る。
