Japan Day 7: Kobe

So on a Sunday way back in the mists of time, by which I mean October 7th, Steph, her friend Yumiko, and I went to Kobe. Our first stop was Chinatown which, like every Chinatown I've been to outside New York, is basically a tourist area, complete with pretty gates at each end.

Beyond that, they sell all sorts of street food. It's totally different from any Chinese food I've had at home and rather delicious. I had a fried bread ball, which was basically like a giant hush puppy but not made with cornmeal, and chicken on a stick. Yum.

I didn't eat these but they do look pretty.

From Chinatown we went down to the harbor. There was an art exhibition going on there with tens of trailers in which people had created installations. Like so:

We didn't pay to go into the exhibition area but you could see quite a few of them from the outside.

The other really neat thing about the harbor is that it has a bunch of excellent street performers. They were good showmen who did quite a few different things. They also did similar things at certain points so I haven't uploaded those. I don't have video editing software so these videos aren't as entertaining as they could be, but here's a look at some of the more entertaining bits of their performance. Guy number one was doing tricks with a ball when we got there. He had a wooden spoon type thing in his mouth and was using it to catch and throw the ball in various ways. Unfortunately I didn't get any good video of that, but I did get some videos of the end of his act.

Juggling knives while standing on a board that's on top of a cylinder.

Jumping through a ring of knives while holding teacups.

The second guy had a lot to say and talked very very fast. Although the only thing that I was able to catch was that he thanked us many times.

Juggling knives while eating an apple (and talking).

Juggling torches.

And more torch juggling.

We went to a mall called Mosaic for dinner where we got Indian food. Unlike the Chinese food, this was just like what we have here. Good stuff. By the time we got out of dinner it was dark. The mall has a small amusement park in it, which we went to look at.

Even better though, it has a beautiful view of Kobe's harbor. The red tower in the photo below is Kobe tower and the area to the left is where we were watching the street performers earlier in the day.

After that we hopped on the train and went back to Osaka, where we went to a public bath. Of which there are, as one would expect, no pictures. It was fun though.

I was planning to get Hiroshima and Miyajima done today as well but then uploading all those videos took a year and a day. My internet connection? It is not fast. So tomorrow it is.