Adventures in Japan

Happy Birthday Laura

It's been a busy few days here in the Lukiwski/Schwartz household. Carla has been busy trying to write about the boys' visit and avoid finding out how much we spent while they were here, and planning our trip to Okinawa, whilst I have been preparing for a workshop tomorrow and training for my new job. They want me to sing. A lot. I sang for them during the interview, you'd would've thought that would have been enough. But I'm not here to talk about my crap singing voice, I'm here to talk about what we got up to today.

Chinese New Year happened recently. Kobe has a large and vibrant Chinatown that's been celebrating the event all week. We decided to go and check it out. The other big event today was that Yoshinoyas nationwide were having a Beef Day. You see, back in the day, Yoshinoya's big thing was beef on rice (cheap!) but then some mad cow stuff happened and their supply was cut off. So they made the switch to pork (still cheap!). Recently they've brought back some limited time only beef dishes, but not the cheap & tasty beef bowl they were known for. Until today, and today only. Carla and I thought we'd better give it a try.


There was a line up. A line that extended out of the door and into the street. People miss their beef. We waited in line and finally got to order our beef bowls. They were... oddly reminiscent of meatloaf.

From there we walked over to the Chinatown. It was packed. So, so packed. There was stuff going on, festivities and demonstrations and stuff but we couldn't get anywhere near that. We could only go where the crowd pushed us. It was a pushy, pushy crowd. We managed to duck down a side alley and beat a strategic retreat. Wanting to chill out a little we descended into a Danish cheesecake coffee house. And when I say cheesecake I mean a cake covered in melted cheese. It tasted oddly good in an odd way and made my nose very shiny. They also do fondue.

As we left the coffee house full of coffee, grease and regret that we didn't really get to see any Chinese New Year's goings on. As we were lamenting, a lion dance passed right by us. Kind of handy, that.


From Kobe, we caught a train over to David's for dinner. Poor David, he wasn't having the best of nights. Japan really sucks if you want to take out money any time after, say, six in the evening. For such a cash based society, that doesn't make much sense. But David soldiered on and whipped up some very nice green curry. Plus he had Spaced on DVD. Carla and I have been wanting to see that for some time. It was worth the wait. Very funny. And charming and witty. Plus people fell down. That's always good for a larf.