Kobe

I had one night (got there about 4 PM, check-in time) and part of one day in Kobe. Here was my cunning plan: my flight home, at least the first leg, leaves Kansai Airport in Osaka about 10 AM. That means I will have to be at the airport by 7 AM. Given my struggles on occasion with the language and the transportation system in Japan, I don’t want to be in a situation where I am frantically rushing to somehow get to the airport or allowing an extra 3 hours in case I screw up. Its not like I can call anyone to come pick me up and give me a lift; I don’t speak the language and don’t know how to use the phone system. So my idea is to explore some of the city.

I checked into a pleasant enough hotel; I think I was close to downtown, but I never quite got my bearings. There was no lack of dining choices, and they had miles of covered shopping streets. I took a picture of a sign near my hotel; it showed that there were at least 12 restaurants in the building, one on top of the other. That’s one thing they do in Japan that we don’t do very much here. which is to go vertical with restaurants. Sure, we have rooftop places, but we don’t usually have restaurants or bars on the 3rd, 5th, and 20th floors.

I spent time wandering the city and shopping. I had made it a point not to buy too much to that point, because I would have had to carry it with me for the rest of the trip. By this time I’d gotten more proficient at packing and had jetisoned some items I didn’t need. In retrospect, I’d really overpacked. Part of that was lack of organization on my part, but it was also that the weather had been warmer than I had anticipated. According to Wikipedia, the high temperature was supposed to be in the mid-50s by day and the mid-40s at night. Instead, there were days that reached 75 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cool a couple nights, but usually pretty balmy by my standards. On the positive side, there weren’t any rainy days, just a few hours of drizzle when I was there. One thing I did notice was that, at least in my experience, the Japanese as a group are not into the kind of ventilation we are over here. Most places I went were warmer and stuffier than I like. Even the Shinkensen in first class was downright hot.

Speaking of the Shinkansen and Japanese public transportation generally, cultural differences between Japan and the US are starkly demonstrated by how people behave in each country. If you’ve watched any travel shows about Japan, you’ve heard that people are generally much more polite there. I’m here to tell you it’s true. Not only on the Shinkansen but also on buses and the subway, people are quiet. They don’t talk on their phones or chatter away loudly to each other. Not only do they not talk on their phones, one of the gentle reminders played on the overhead speakers is not to play your earphones so loud that the noise “leaks and disturbs your fellow passengers.” Also, people carefully clean up the area where they were sitting, and there is no litter on the streets. 

It may come as a shock to my fellow American citizens, but we have a reputation around the world for being loud; in the EU there is a saying that “the Americans come like the wind.” I can understand that because I see it here. I remember when Kay, Jon, Jossylyn, and I went to The Franklin here in Portsmouth. Its a nice place, but not only was it loud generally, but there was a table across the room with two millenial couples shouting at each other. Not in anger, mind you, just having a conversation. I felt like walking over and saying, “Listen, you are loud to me; I can make out every word you are saying from 20 feet away; why the hell are you shouting at people 2 feet away across the table? And you realize there are other people here, right?” And that’s the rule, not the exception in my experience. 

Kay and I sometimes go for a drink at a local place called B.G.s Boathouse on what’s called Sagamore Creek, which is really just an inlet of the Piscatiqua River, which is a tidal river that turns into Portsmouth Harbor. Its a nice place with a view of the water that closes in the colder months.

Unfortunately, it is popular with both the locals and tourists; to quote Zen master Yogi Berra, “Nobody goes there anymore. Its too crowded.” But you can sometimes get a seat in their miniscule bar, maybe 8 seats at the bar and 3 or 4 high-top tables. Unfortunately, the bar is popular with large, florid men; my guess is that they are retired insurance executives or salesmen. Despite the place being tiny, they shout at each other across the 2 feet that separate them: “How about those Red Sox last night?” “Hell of a game, Lou,” loud enough to make the Tito’s vodka bottles do a little dance on the bar shelf. Why do they feel the need to trumpet like small rhinoceros? Beats the hell out of me. I’ve dubbed the place “The Bellowing Goyim Lounge.” My sister Vivian, who worked in our family’s restaurants, understood the name at once, having lived the experience. But once again, I digress; what started as a discussion of Japanese vs. American culture turned into a rant about American manners. I guess the point is that on average, the Japanese are much more polite and considerate of their fellows than we are, but the high volume does annoy me. I’m reminded of a song in a skit from 1987 by a comedy group called the Frantics that talks about annoying people and what should be done about them:

People talking in movie shows,

People smoking in bed!

People voting Republican,

Give them a boot to the head!

But back to Japan.

In Osaka, in part because I brought so many warm clothes, I had asked the lady at the front desk where normal Japanese people bought their everyday clothes because I needed to dress lighter. She suggested I go to a store called Uniqlo, which is a Japanese clothing retailer. Once again, it was a huge building with an astonishing selection of clothing and who knows what else over at least 6 floors. I was able to buy some of those quck-dry t-shirts that virtually every Japanese man wears when not in a black business suit and a couple pair of similar pants with multiple pants that fit loose and had zipper pockets. I don’t know about you, but when I’m traveling overseas, I check my wallet, passport, and cellphone obsessively; its almost a catechism: “Phone, passport, wallet” as I pat each one in turn. Having zippered pockets makes me feel more secure. I thought the place was a real find, but I just checked on Google; they already have 6 stores in the Boston area selling the same merchandise as in Japan. Oh well.

One thing I liked about Kobe and Japan generally was their manhole covers. Each city had its own designs, which made something mundane into something decorative. Here are a couple examples:

The next morning I went to a Shinto shrine I had seen the day before, walking back to my hotel. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the Ikuta Jinja shrine, possibly the oldest in Japan. I did some research and discovered that it dates back to the 3rd century and that the city of Kobe was built around it. While I was there, there was a Shinto ceremony, complete with a priest chanting and someone beating a taiko drum. There were many families with small children dressed in formal kimonos.