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 4th 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!
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