Adventures in Japan

Beef is beef

Back to Kobe! This time with a Kobe beef destination that came personally recommended. First, though, we visited the earthquake disaster museum. I think it's actually called the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution, but the parts we saw were all about The Earthquake.

We started out watching thunderous recreations of the earthquake projected onto the walls of a little theatre (the kind with no seats) then were ushered through a reconstruction of a devastated city street to another theatre (this one for sitting) where we watched a short film about the experiences of a survivor (with English translation through an earpiece). Have I mentioned that earthquakes are terrifyingly destructive? Because wow. That all kind of blew my mind.

After the presentations, we were given little bar code readers and left to roam the displays on the next floor. Each bar code that we scanned brought up an English translation of a personal earthquake account that someone had submitted to the museum. Some of the entries were very positive, some were bitter, and some were just sad. It all made for interesting reading. At the far end of the hall, we could have printed out all the stories we'd scanned and taken them home, but we didn't know that until it was too late. Instead we spent our time reading as we went along, and talking to the museum volunteers. At that rate we hardly got to see anything before it was time to go (we wanted to make double, extra sure that we made it to the beef place before Tyler had to leave for work). There was lots more earthquake stuff to see (like science centre style displays that show how earthquakes work & stuff) and a whole other building with "human renovation" exhibits that we didn't make it to. I was a little disappointed, but beef is beef.

I certainly would have rather been in that museum than on the bus we took back downtown. It was packed to the point of severe physical discomfort. The kids behind me didn't care. They were all feet & elbows. I had to lean over and brace myself against the bus window to keep myself from being repeatedly knocked onto the little old lady sitting beside me. Shovey little brats. They may have soured me on public transit forever. Grrrr.

We were pretty pressed for time, but we managed to squeeze in the Kobe beef experience. The place we ate was nothing fancy, but we were each able to get a tasty steak lunch for a somewhat reasonable price. It was cooked on sizzling plates in front of us (oh, did that smell good!) and came with lots of garlic, and tasty little dipping sauces. It was definitely delicious, but the general consensus was that we've all had meat that was just as good back home in Canada. Western Canada, that is.


After Tyler went to work, Trevor and I wandered around Kobe for a bit, but we couldn't find anything we were too keen on doing, what with the weather being kind of crap & all. But you know what's great about Japan? It's full of warm department stores that have toilets with heated seats. They're great for a browse when you're tired of wandering the cold, hard streets. I almost typed cold, dark streets, but I haven't seen too many of those around here. Especially not anywhere near a department store.

Eventually we got tired of Kobe and caught a train to Kyoto. We had a bit of trouble finding Tyler, then the three of us had a bit of trouble finding Moonwalk, the bar where we were supposed to meet Ayako, Tyler's cute yet worldly co-worker. There are at least five bars named Moonwalk in downtown Kyoto and we weren't entirely sure which one was which. The one we ended up in this time had a big window and a nice view out over the river. Only one table, though. As is our habit when we visit bars named Moonwalk, we sampled cocktails with interesting names (but no descriptions). At one point I asked for an Irish Coffee, which apparently caused the bartender some distress. Irish Coffee wasn't listed in the menu, but I figured that someone working in an establishment that offers such variety would be familiar with the drink, or at least have a bar guide behind the counter. Guess not. I think he called around to a few of the bartenders at the other Moonwalk locations before he finally cam back to me and asked if I wanted coffee with whiskey in it. In the end he brought it to me iced instead of hot, and it was actually pretty good. Poor guy. I didn't mean to cause so much trouble.


Not learning from our last Kyoto drinking experience, we almost missed our last train again. As it turned out, we got a train out of Kyoto all right, but once we got to Umeda, it was too late to catch a connecting train the rest of the way home. I really wasn't feeling up to walking all that way, and I don't think any of us wanted to stay out all night, so we decided to cough up the cash for a taxi. We got lucky. The fare we ended up paying turned out to be pretty reasonable. Apparently the trick is to seek out a little yellow taxi. According to our driver (who didn't speak any English) they're much cheaper than the big black ones. Who knew?