The Foreigner Tour '06

There is nothing like traveling half-way across the world (I think this may be the first time I actually mean half-way) and going to see Western homes and of all things, Chinatown. We had a great time though. The "we" were some chorus and orchestra people that happened to be on the shuttle bus with me. I had decided to travel into downtown Kobe and see the sights. While I was on the bus I overheard some people talking about a great performance of the Kodo drummers that they saw in Kyoto. I asked them about it and we started to talk about our plans for the day. I told them I would just be aimlessly walking around the city and they asked if I would like to join their roving band misfits. Of course I jumped at the opportunity of actually spending time with people on an excursion. It is really different visiting a place when it is part of your job and you know only a few people. I had actually written a post this morning that was pretty depressing. I was feeling sorry for myself that I didn't know anyone here or at least the people I knew were in another city (Nagoya) for Die Walkure. Some how I erased it accidentally and didn't feel like typing it all again. But the gist of it was that it's hard to have fun and see all these neat things alone. It is so much better to share the experience with someone. I wish that the someone was my Susie and family and friends but I had to settle for the chorus. They were great and we had a great time.

We first started out in Chinatown. This place is nuts. It is Sunday so I guess I should have expected a lot of people, but wow. Here is a picture of the classic gates into Chinatown that you find in pretty much every Chinatown across the world. I wonder if there is a GIANT gate in china that everyone has to go through. Or at least one over every road leading into China. I swear to God that we ate our way through the town. It was great though. I first started out with a dumpling filled with pork and veggies. Next we moved on to duck wrapped in a moo-shu wrap with scallions and plum sauce, followed by a sesame ball with red bean paste, all washed down with bubble tea. What is bubble tea you ask? I had no idea either. Susie and I tried to order it up in my neighborhood right before I left, but they didn't serve it anymore. It was like a cold tea that had milk in it, but at the bottom of the glass were brown balls of tapioca that were the size of marbles. They gave you a really wide straw to suck it all up. I must say, it was pretty tasty. All of these things we got from vendors on the streets. They all had little restaurants and then sold these in front. Here is a sampling of some of the things that they had.

Here is a couple in a little park that we passed in Chinatown. Too cute to not take a picture of.

To keep up with the theme of visiting foreign places in a foreign land, we headed to the "western" area. All of these houses were built by western merchants that moved to Kobe around the turn of the century. A lot of the houses were leveled by the earthquake of '95 but they have museum-like buildings where they were. I must say that it wasn't all that exciting to go into a house and see old western furniture, but it was interesting. Here is a pic of one of the houses that we took a walk through. It had a beautiful garden in the back and a grat view looking over the city of Kobe. After our jaunt through the western civilization we were all pretty tired from walking so much. We decided to go back to the hotel, but agreed to meet for dinner back in downtown.

We went to a place called Ohishi which was recommended by the concierge for teppen-yaki. I am still not sure exactly what that means, but at least I know what I ate. Well, for the most part. We started out with (damn) quesadilla looking things that didn't have much of a taste to them. It was then followed by some grilled eggplant in some kind of wonderful sauce that I could have taken a bath in, it was so good. Then came the beef, not just beef, but Kobe beef. Marbled with fatty goodness, I could feel my veins and arteries clogging up by just looking at it. It was accompanied by a nice mix of vegetables. Back to the beef. Wow. This would have to be the most tender beef that I have ever had in my life. No knife needed, no sauce needed, it was great. Not quite melt in your mouth, but really close. The meal that we got was for two which Kurt and I split. Kurt is in the chorus and is also the chorus manager. I also had some sake. I am not sure what kind it was, but I had cold sake which was actually room temperature. I have had warm sake before, but I didn't really like it. This was awesome. It was so light and tasted great. The whole meal cost us 12,000 yen or about $50 a peice.

Well I think I am off to Kyoto tomorrow to try and catch the Kodo show. I may then run over to Nara which has a great shrine and they also have deer just running wild around the town. I have been told that you can buy little treats from vendors for the deer. I have also been told not to eat them. I think he found out the hard way.

If I am not eaten by a deer I will write about it tomorrow.

Till then...