Wednesday, October 4, 2017 - Nagoya and Kobe (updated)

Quiet, leisurely morning. By the time we get next door even Andy is up, if not quite awake. Last night went until two a.m. with lots of sake and reminiscing about the old days. What a great night!

And it's about half gone!

Good luck!

For breakfast we finish up most of the bread goodies from the bakery. Mine has a fine coating of fish eggs and is delightfully salty! We sit around chatting and checking our mail, and Sakurako wants to spend some more time “typing” as she learns her letters and numbers – and commas and periods and brackets!

Before we know it Tae has fixed fried rice for everyone for lunch and it is so much better than any restaurant fried rice I’ve ever had! We clear the table and Ginger and I wash and dry the dishes. Tae has finally relented and is willing to accept our help. While we do that she is making Andy’s rice balls for his snack at work. All his co-workers are jealous of how well she takes care of him!

Ginger and I have to go back next door to pack for our mini-adventure! We’re leaving this afternoon for Kobe and Hiroshima, and will be back Friday afternoon or early evening. We’re hoping there will be time to see Andy’s school here in Nagoya. Three days a week he goes to other cities to teach, so Friday will be our only opportunity.

Andy goes off to work and in about half an hour we all pile into the infamous van and go to Iori’s pre-school to watch his gymnastics class, which is called Tryle. (?) There are about thirty little munchkins in the class, all dressed in the gymnastics uniforms and what a hoot! They do headstands and curls around the bar and summersaults and go outside for a regular race and a relay race! Iori beats the other two kids in his heat! (Sorry - no photos allowed!) Each time we go indoors we take off our shoes and put them back on to go outside, then take them off again to go back inside - and up and down and up and down all the stairs. Parents are young!

We go straight to the train station from class and Tae drops us off quickly before she can get a ticket! And another adventure begins! Ginger ordered our JR (Japan Rail) passes on line and they arrived the day before we left the states! Now we just have to figure out how to use them! The first thing we learn is that this is not a shinkansen (bullet train) station. We have to take the subway one stop to get to the JR station, so we buy tickets and go looking for our subway.

There! That’s one! When we get off we have to find the JR ticket office to get our passes validated and get our tickets to Kobe. There isn’t quite enough time to get to the train, so we arrive at the platform as our train is leaving. No problem, there is a railway attendant who shows us where the next train will arrive and we only have to wait about twenty or twenty-five minutes. That gives us time to check out all the vending machines! We had found one with the holy grail displayed; but it was all out!

The girls were annoyed too! It's the red can in the top row!

Our train arrives and we have lots of seats to choose from! There are four stops before we reach shin-Osaka, where we have to change trains for Kobe. When we get off we have to find the next train and ask some promising-looking kids. I think they are Australian and the tall young man can peer over the train to the next track’s sign which he thinks says Kobe! We go down stairs and come back up on the correct side with about two minutes to spare!

It's going to be dark when we go looking for our hostel!

At the shin-Kobe station we have to find the subway to go one stop where our hostel is located. Got it! Follow the green path and there’s our subway! We get seats and ride the few minutes to our stop, get off, and start following the directions to the 2R Hostel. They call for using the East Exit. The problem is that there are at least seven different East Exits and they all go out to different streets! One young boy offers to help us; but he doesn’t really get the directions and we wind up retracing our steps and striking out in a different direction.

We get outside and spot a Mini Mini, which is one of the markers we’re looking for. That doesn’t pan out and we try another approach. Finally we ask a group of young people who turn out to be Malaysian! Again! Actually one woman in the group is Japanese and she and the others collaborate on drawing a very detailed map for us and we set off on their path. Eventually their directions coincide with those from the hostel and presto chango we’re there!

Yes! A landmark!

We're on the right street!

We take off our shoes and choose plastic slippers to approach the really charming young woman at the window. We go through the process and ask her for a recommendation of a Kobe beef restaurant (why else would you come to Kobe!?). She gives us a card and a map for her favorite place, Propeller, and we file it away for after checking out our room.

We’ve opted for a two-person room, rather than the cubbyholes that are apparently quite popular. They’re like the sleepers on a train, with one person above another. Glad we didn’t do that! Ours has bunk beds with futons and comes with pillows, duvet, and clean sheets. There is an area about four feet wide between the sides of the beds and the opposite wall but there is a big window that opens to admit cool fresh air. There aren’t any bugs here and no one has screens on their windows!

We deposit our backpacks and take off for dinner. The map is only a little confusing but it shows the JR station and we know how to find that! The restaurant turns out to be a tiny little place with enough seating for fourteen people and it is our waiter’s first night. He has a smattering of English; but we manage to communicate and we order what we think will be wonderful.

The lighting is soft and there is piano jazz playing in the background. There is only one beer on the menu. We don’t know what it is; but its very fine and comes in wine glasses! Our waiter wasn’t quite sure we’d be happy with our menu selection but he needn’t have worried! Our appetizer is composed of five different things but he can’t begin to tell us what they might be. When the plates arrive we are stunned! There is a large shrimp in a spicy cocktail sauce, tiny shrimp and other things in a kind of marinade, there is a roll of some thinly sliced meat with a black olive, a very thin slice of smoked fish and a very appetizing green salad with onions and a light dressing. I’d be happy now! But there’s more to come!

The next course is a vegetable soup filled with large chunks of tomato and pieces of onion in a flavorful broth. All this is just a build-up to the entrée – Kobe beef sliced into bite-sized pieces, atop a mushroom and bean sprouts creation with two little roasted potatoes, that would stand as a vegetarian entrée on it’s own! And there are crispy fried bits of garlic, too. We also receive a dish with peanut sauce, soy sauce and honey, and Himalayan seal salt. This is the event we promised ourselves. No more buffets with ordinary dishes. This is a memorable dinner and the cute little waiter and waitress are perfect. When I took a picture of the interior, both of them ducked down behind the counter!

The meal finishes with after-dinner drinks. Ginger has hot tea and I get iced coffee. Because the little brown-sugar cubes wouldn’t melt easily, the waiter brings me a carafe of sugar water! The coffee is strong but there is lots of cream and sugar water and it is just right. The wait places a little wooden waiter on our table and when you pick up his head, he's a toothpick holder!

I wish we had taste-o-vision so you could relish the flavor and experience the tenderness!

It's the place on the left.

We seem to have closed down the entire street!

Part of a continuing series

We find our way home with only a little difficulty and when we get there it is after 2200, so we have to work the code to get inside. Upstairs we explore the ladies powder room and make our way to Room 2. Bed looks great, even when it’s the top bunk. But first – blogging!