First two proper days

So, it's the afternoon of my second proper day in Japan (Thursday evening doesn't really count as I was only semi-conscious and busy trying to process the whole new world I've landed it.) .

First day I went "sight-seeing" in Kobe, which really means I wandered around aimlessly until bumped into something interesting. As it was, I ended up going to Higashiyuenchi Park, where the memorial to the 1995 earthquake is. They also have fountains there which turn on when you come close because there are motion detectors hidden in the sculptures and trees. After that I went to try and find Meriken Park and Harbourland, which are down by the harbour, but couldn't actually find them (although I later found out I was actually IN Meriken Park...), wandered through the really really really long shopping streets in Motomachi and Sannomiya (So long I'd actually given up finding the end of it.) and down into Nankinmachi which is Kobe's Chinatown which is really cool and totally different to the rest of Kobe. After lunch I wandered up to Kitano, which is up on the slopes of the mountains north of the city (Kobe is sandwiched between mountains to the north and the Inland Sea to the south, so is only about 3 km wide). Kitano is famous for having quite a lot of European style mansions and townhouses, due to it being the American and Dutch trading port before Japan opened up to the outside world. Apparently these are considered very exotic for the Japanese, though I was somewhat less impressed.

One thing you notice quickly is there are vending machines EVERYWHERE, like, literally, at least 3 on every street, usually a lot more. They also sell self heating coffee cans, which I havn't actually tried yet but will get round to at some point. Anyway, there are loads of pretty much everything else as well, but despite this for some reason whenever I've actually been specifically looking for anything I've never been able to find one, for example, yesterday I wanted a vending machine to get a drink from (it's quite hot and sweaty here, for me at least). Could I find one? No. Same with Udon restaurants for lunch yesterday. I found a million French and Italian places, but it took me literally an hour to find a noodle bar in all of Kitano, Sannomiya, Nankinmachi and Motomachi. This happened to me again today, when I went looking for a kaitenzushi place (conveyor-belt sushi restaurant). Actually, I havn't really seen many sushi places at all.

Anyway, at lunch yesterday I was in the what was apparently the only noodle bar in Kobe at 1400 on a Friday, and as soon as I sit down they immediately give me an English menu which didn't have as much stuff in it as the Japanese menu (I found that on my table just after I ordered :-(). Mind you, this woman did ask me if I could read English when she gave it to me, so at least she didn't just assume I was American :-) (Which happens a lot) On the subject of restaurants and shops, I have to say Japanese service puts the rest of the world to shame, you get free water and green tea, which they come to your table every few minutes or so to refill your cup, and everybody shouts "Irasshaimase" (welcome) when you arrive.

One annoying thing though, is that people try to speak to me in English. Most people can't but even if they "can" it's usually very bad, and really difficult to understand. It would actually be so much easier and quicker for both of us if they would just speak Japanese (not to mention better for my practice). Even when I reply in Japanese (or even ask them to begin with), they keep on speaking that way grrr. Oh, and EVERYONE assumes you can't read a thing.

Today I decided to brave not only the train system, but also the subway and monorail! I went up to Shin-kobe station (up in Kitano, it's where the bullet trains stop) this morning to get the cable car up the mountain and walk down (there are some famous waterfalls and it's really pretty, not to mention nice for it to be so easy to get out of the city in 5 minutes- beat that Tokyoites!). Anyway, the subway exit drops you in the 3rd basement of a big shopping/appartment complex and it took me a lot of wandering around the seaweed aisles of "Gourmet city" to find a way out. Anyway, I eventually find the cable car (which has air con, and stops half-way up for them to open the doors and blow cool air in!) and walk down the mountain through these gardens. About half way down literally the funniest thing since the "Look! A foreigner" incident happens to me. Some random American couple with a slightly odd twinge to their accents are just behind me, so I ask them if they're Russian-Americans (turned out they were German-Americans), and so just after that the guy say's to me: "You speak really good English for a Japanese guy"! I mean, I was wearing sunglasses, but still! Oh well, at least now I can say I've been taken for American by Japanese people and Japanese by Americans...

Oh, and speaking of English, I was walking through Shin-Kobe station and an entire class of little Japanese primary school kids start shouting "Erro!" at me until their teacher tells them off for being rude to the foreigner lol.

Anyway, one last thing, I went to Rokko Island (which the guidebook says is considered a "foreign ghetto"; I saw 3 westerners... and went to visit the Kobe Fashion museum, which must have paid Lonely Planet a lot of money to get themselves such a hyped up description in the book, but it did have a couple of pieces from the actual designers (mostly the French ones,like dresses actually designed by Gabriel Chanel, Christian Dior, Jeanne Lanvin and Hubert de Givenchy, who was called Givenbcy on the English blurb lol)

Oh, and there are some frikkin MASSIVE spiders in Japan.