Kobe

A few hours of sleep and then it was off to Kobe to meet Jannie. My head was throbbing and I reeked of cigarettes. Somehow made it to Kobe and wolfed down a huge bowl of noodles while Jannie and I traded stories of our previous night's adventures.

Because of my condition, we ended up just strolling around and window shopping until we could check into the hotel. I was exhausted but the weather was beautiful (why couldn't it have been beautiful on sports day?!?). Since the big earthquake of 1995 pretty much destroyed Kobe, the city has been rebuilt into a modern, bustling city with great transportation, skyscrapers, and looks more "western" than Japanese!

We checked out "Harborland", a new development of restaurants and shops right on the water- it was very Horton Plaza (San Diego) meets Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco) meets New York's South Street Seaport. Jannie and I looked around in vain for a sign that we were in Japan!!!

We shopped at the Totoro store for awhile then FEASTED on Indian food- curry, lamb, nan, chicken, mango lassis... We wanted to catch a movie afterwards, but unfortunately, the last movie had already started (7pm!) so we wandered slowly back to the hotel. We were mesmerized by a complex art installation in a shopping mall- it was a "Mousetrap" like creation with rolling balls and ramps and mechanical gadgets and gears and bells... tons of fun!!!