Category: Japan

Today we split up. KLS went to classy shops and purchased fine goods, and I spent hours looking in shops like this:

And this:

That sold stuff like this:

I also lurked in alcoves like this:

It was all in the same shopping building across the street from our hotel as well, and even after 6 hours I felt I hadn’t seen everything. In short, a wonderful day. 🙂

Let’s get to some highlights. For starters, inside this store:

I found this magnetic ‘paper doll’ set:

Yes it’s awful, but for that exact reason I wanted to buy it for a future gift for Bernard. The store was tiny and (unusual for Japan) dirty and I was the only customer. The salesman was at the counter with his laptop when I tried to get his attention to get a price: “sumimasen” I said (‘excuse me’).

No answer.

I tried again. It was just him and I, and I stood virtually in front of him. Even if he didn’t hear me he certainly could see me. Again, he didn’t reply. I assumed he didn’t want to deal with a foreigner and left. Alas, no Mars Attacks paper doll for Bernard!

It was time for a stamp rally. We had seen this one the day before, and the goal was to create an image by using four different stamps scattered around the mall. Cards were provided as well as a frame to align the stamps correctly but I wanted to use my own postcards which didn’t fit into the frame. Finesse was therefore required.,.

Not bad I think! I also did one using the frame to see what it was supposed to look like:

As I said we both shopped for hours and then met for dinner, which was our fourth Sushiro in under a week:

I’m eating my favourite: hamburger sushi. Made with beef. But not, I suspect, the type of beef most tourists visit Kobe to eat:

Many non-Japanese know this city as the beef place, and while this is true, and that there are beef/steak restaurants in abundance in the area we are staying, to my shame I’ve eaten none of the legendary beef!

Perhaps I should have ventured out of my comfort zone a little?

Tomorrow we leave Kobe for the fourth destination on this vacation. It will take us farther from Tokyo than on any previous trip to this country, and indeed we’ll even be crossing to the southwest island of Kyushu. Stay tuned to find out where we end up!

My final thoughts on Kobe…? I’m pretty sure I’ll be back here again soon enough 🙂

The primary reason we’re staying in Kobe is an amusement park… that we discovered today is closed for maintenance for about a month. This wasn’t the case when we planned our trip, but it is what it is and we had to change today’s plans accordingly.

Our solution; Harborland, an entertainment/food/shopping complex. It was much bigger than we expected, with multiple several-story shopping centers and scads of restaurants, but our primary goal was the Ferris Wheel Mosaic.

Kristin rode it with me, which is notable since she’s usually a bit scared of these things. As it turned out this was an extremely stable wheel that turned so slowly there was little feeling of movement. The weather was lovely, the views were nice and it was altogether worth the ride.

That’s a photo from the very top. Kobe is a port and there were a lot of cruise ships and ferries docked. Soon we’ll be on one of them…

We did some shopping, ate many things and had a fun day. We’re in that phase of a vacation where you forget what day it is and you don’t set alarms anyway so it doesn’t matter.

Look at that ridiculous naan bread KLS was served with a vegetable curry bought at a random Indian restaurant we found in a basement dining area. Food is inexpensive here usually, but the weak Yen makes it an even better deal. Her meal (naan and curry, salad and iced tea) was only about US$6.

We also opened – a few days too early – a Fukubukuro (lucky bag)! We bought it at Lashingbang for ¥3000 (about $20) and it was said to contain ‘at least’ 50 items.

Here’s what was inside:

Lots of low Kuji prizes, promotional stuff and cards/stickers from wafer candy. A good chunk of this stuff was for series we’d never heard of, and some of it was over a decade old. We’ve been buying Fukubukuro for a few years now so we knew what (not) to expect and had a good chuckle at this pile of mostly garbage.

The above is what we kept, which meant 84% of the items in the lucky bag have now been trashed.

Should I buy another one?

We’re in Kobe now, after a short multi-train journey from Arima early today. We have a nice hotel room right in the main shopping district and here’s the view as I write this:

Kobe’s one of the biggest cities in Japan and known for its beef (amongst other things) but first on our list is to visit a location I daresay most foreign tourists haven’t ever heard of. I’ll let you wait until tomorrow to hear about it.

There’s a mall across the street from our hotel and the 2nd and 3rd floors are an otaku’s paradise with all manner of game/anime/figure/card shops. I’ve already bought some stuff but will certainly spent more time there these next few days.

That’s KLS eating a chocolate taiyaki from a shop near the station (show in the background). She said it was really good, like a crispy pancake with chocolate inside.

I didn’t take many photos today – I was overwhelmed by the otaku mall – so to end this post here’s a specific story about a gacha experience. It starts with this machine:

If you translate the Japanese it says something about the machine containing photos of “someone else’s dog” and to collect all 15. It was ¥300 (about $2) a go and with the intention of giving whatever it was to Sue I threw my coins in and turned the knob and this came out:

A small ball with an even smaller… photo inside. “Surely this isn’t it“, I thought, “surely it’s a sticker“.

It isn’t. It’s what appears to be a handmade and hand cut tiny photo of a dog. Again: it’s not a sticker, just a slightly poorly printed photo. It’s exactly as described: I paid $2 for a tiny photo of someone else’s dog!

I was tempted to just toss it away, but I bought it for Sue and by golly it’s going to Sue. I hope she likes it 🙂