Mermaid Hunting

Before going to bed last night, I texted the following to my Mom:

“Japan is beautiful. The top 5 things I like about it:
1.) I can drink the tap water
2.) I can see across the bay
3.) There are clouds and stars in the sky
4.) They drive on the wrong side of the road (which is both confusing and fun)
5.) There are no bones in my meat.”

Not only did I sleep in, but I slept great! The curtains on my windows totally blacked out the sunlight, and since my cell phone died in the night, I slept well past my alarm that had been set for 9:00. When I got up I had an email from Keiko saying that she had slept in and would be ready to meet at 11:30. In the meantime she suggested I walk over to the mall called Umie and get something at the Starbucks.

I got dressed and went back out on the balcony. The blue sky and fluffy clouds were amazing. The sky was so bright it actually hurt my eyes to look at it. I guess the smog in Shanghai acts as about an SPF 10 or so, because this sunlight was just incredible. The mountains—which I could see the silhouette of last night were awesome too. Kobe is a long and narrow town with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other.

I went outside and walked along the pier. Everything in the skyline looked so futuristic. The architecture was very sleek and modern and everything seems to be either white or silver. [Keiko explained to me later in the day that a lot of this new architecture was because Kobe was leveled in an earthquake in 1995.] Across from me on another pier was a large Ferris wheel and lots of different restaurants with outdoor seating. As I got closer to town, there were two things that I haven’t seen enough of in Asia: old Catholic churches, and pigeons! In a lot of ways, Kobe felt a lot like a European city, but a very futuristic one.

I could see the sign for Umie mall and made my way over. I was excited to cross the street with traffic going the opposite direction, but it was a lot less thrilling than I anticipated. Inside of the mall was very clean. I entered through a department store called “Victoria Golf” that seemed to sell kind of athletic-looking, trendy clothes. I took a peek at the price tag, and was surprised at how expensive it was. It definitely wasn’t as expensive as the Euro-zone, but it was more expensive than China. It might be comparable in price for the same quality in the US, but after living off of Yuan in China, it still gave me sticker shock.

Everything inside the mall was very quiet. If it’s possible, this mall was even bigger than the Chinese malls. The department stores themselves were not very big, but there were hundreds of them, and every hallway seemed to lead to another hallway. It was also huge; at least 7 stories that I could get to by escalator.

The escalators also are worth mentioning. In both the airport and the mall, I noticed that they were made by Mitsubishi (an obviously Japanese company.) The hand rails were different colors—the airport had red, the subway had blue, the mall had green—and the stairs came in different patterns. You could ride it up as a normal escalator for a floor and then it would become a moving sidewalk while it moved you across a small landing, and then became stairs again and kept moving you up.

I looked around for quite a while to starbucks. I took the escalator up to the 4^th floor, which from the pictures on the sign appeared to be the food court. My assumption was correct, but a food court in a Japanese mall—much like a Chinese mall—has lots of different mid-range restaurants (not exactly the fast food joints we have in the US. Starbucks wasn’t here.

I did find an ATM however. There was an English option on it, but it did not take a visa card. This is actually the first international ATM I’ve run into that wouldn’t take my card.

Going back to the main floor I found a little café that looked like it had basically copied the design of Starbucks. Unfortunately it was closed. There was a pedestrian bridge over the road from the mall to the pier with the Ferris wheel. I decided to go look over there.

Walking the pier really was like traveling back to Europe. There were lots of little boutique shops and cafes. There were Italian restaurants and German delis. There was a Swiss chocolate shop and gelato stand opposite each other on the cobblestone road. The smells of hot dogs, pizza, and fresh caught seafood all blended together and teased the senses…but there was still no Starbucks.

I thought about crossing back over to the mall and just getting something from the food court. But as I walked away, I saw a little sandwich board sign that read “Butter” across the top in fancy script. Below the heading were pictures of various breakfasts, most of which featured pancakes, eggs, sausage, and fruit…none of which I have had since I came to Asia.

There was a man wearing a badge that had the information “i” on it. I saw him give directions to a Japanese couple so I went up to see if he could point me towards the pancakes.

“Where is this restaurant?” I asked pointing at the sign.

He said something in Japanese, which I think sounds a lot like Spanish.

“Pancakes?” I said, pointing at the sign.

He looked at the sign and nodded. “Yes, pancake.”

“Where?” I asked. He pointed at a little white building that was designed to look like a house. “Open?” I asked. He nodded. “Thank you.” He smiled and bowed. I tried to bow a little too before walking to the restaurant.

When I went inside, I wasn’t sure what to do. In America, we wait to be seated. In most of Europe, you seat yourself. In China, you seem to typically order at the front and then take a seat. I couldn’t remember what Keiko had done last night. It seemed like someone had led us to a table, but maybe Keiko was just talking to the waitress. Either way, I figured I’d err on the side of caution and play “stupid tourist” in the entry way until someone came to show me.

Eventually, a girl came out from the back and said something. “Breakfast,” I said. She held up a finger telling me to wait and went back into the kitchen. Another girl came out who spoke English and led me to a seat in the back of the room. The wall paper had a pattern of sand colored stones that were wearing away.

I found one of the cheaper pancake breakfasts and ordered it along with tea. The waitress suggested tangerine tea, which sounded good to me. When my breakfast came it was incredible. I wish I’d taken a picture of it. The pancake was cooked in a steamer, and was about an inch and a half thick. It was covered with custard, and scorched into the bowl with a brulé torch so it had a hard caramelized topping. It was topped with blueberry jelly and diced pieces of strawberry…and it was absolutely amazing! When I bit into the strawberry, my lips tingled from the familiar sweetness that is impossible to find in China (much less eat.) The entire thing was so sweet, with way to much sugar, but it was so unbelievably good.

The tangerine tea was pretty good too. In China, they make tea by boiling water and then putting tea leaves in the water. Keiko explained that Japan uses teabags made of netting so that the leaves don’t get in the water and can be removed before serving.

When I was done—and I did eat the entire thing—I walked back over to the hotel to get my phone and meet Keiko in the lobby. It’s going to be hard to leave this place I thought. Japan has definitely gone in for the win!