Holiday Inn Express Shin Kobe

... 7. The restaurants where everyone kneels on the floor with their shoes off. One we went to had a big hot plate where we cooked our own food (mostly cabbage and lettuce and meat). It looked really simple but it tasted really good with loads of flavour. <br>8. The plastic models of the food they have outside restaurants which are all shiny and perfect!<br><br>After Osaka we had a quick day trip to Nara which was the first permanent capital of Japan around 1300 years ago ...

... at Steak Ron, delicious Sakuyaki at Hariju and more helpings of takoyaki/okonomuyaki/yakisoba.<br><br>S teak Ron<br>1-10-2 Sonezaki Shinchi, Kita-ku | Umeda, Osaka<br><br>Hariju<br>1-9-26 Nishishinsaibashi Chuo-ku Osaka<br><br>Takontetsu (Pizza Ball House)<br>1-9-20 Maru Bldg Umeda 1 Chome <br>

... most of the floor space. It was a "cozy" little dinner party:)<br><br>I made my now old Miyamoto Musashi chopstick joke (catching a fly in mid flight) and got a laugh out of a new, unsuspecting audience, then dug in and snatched some kimchi from my bowl&#8230; not bad, I thought.<br><br>Kimchi is to Korea what rice is to Japan: you eat it with every meal! Hyana had recently arrived from Korea and had brought a supply of authentic Korean kimchi, because let's ...

... since our friend's from Matsuyama were going to be arriving shortly.<br><br>After they arrived and we took some photos overlooking Kobe, we all set off for Kobe's Chinatown. It was quite interesting, but honestly the Chinatown in Vancouver is a lot bigger and I think more Chinese. There was still a lot of Japanese restaurants and signage in Kobe's Chinatown.<br><br>After that, came the most interesting part of Kobe, the harbour ...

... on top and who knows what was inside of it. They both ending up being very good but a few months ago I don't know if I would have touched them. I have definitely become more open to trying food since the voyage has began and have been pleasantly surprised on many occasions about food "risks" I have taken. Afterwards we went by a four story grocery, clothing, and toy store where we looked around for a while. It was kind of like a mini Wal-Mart. We went ...

... know my reports are always long, but you can scroll down and just read the parts that interest you if you want. Meeting I went to Japan to attend the Joint Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO) meeting. There are 5 tuna RFMO's that divide up the oceans and were created so that countries can make collective decisions on how to responsibly manage their commercial tuna industries. For years now, I have been attending the Inter-American Tropical Tuna ...

... Yaska Shrine, dedicated to the hard-working people who earn their living with their hands, and Chion-in. By then it was late-afternoon and my feet were telling me they were done. So I strolled back to the main drag and traded the temples and maple trees for power lines and buses. Thankfully one of them was heading my way and I took it back to the station. From there it was another hour trainride back to Kobe, where I met up with Kathy and Serge later on in the evening.

... store na obali reke - zgleda kokr ob Savinji v Celju skor da, sam da je mal vec trave po sredi reke;). Bil je prijeten soncek in prav nic me ni mikalo hodit od templja do templja in od shrine do shrine. Zdej js ne vem kako se rece srajnu ;) Tako je minil prvi dan. Naslednje jutro sem bla produktivna in sem se odpravila na izlet v Naho - Naha je bla vcasih the CAPITAL in seveda kokr so japonci manhnjeni na najvecje, najdaljse, najstarejse in ...

... is taking me for acupuncture. i keep tellin her that i`m deathly afraid of needles, but she`s convinced i need to experience it. ****! and to make matter worse, the guy performing the acupuncture is blind. now you know i hold nothing against blind people, but when you`re this scared, you can`t help but wonder if you`re gonna wind up with a strange needle in your butt, ya know? then wednesday we`re going to universal studios japan. thursday night i`m ...

... sarcastic tone here please)!" Week 13 ( 1.16 - 1.22.03) - I went out to a local izakaya with Stu from Australia, nicknamed Stu the Mule by me for no particular reason. Stu and I get along really well and it's a shame he's leaving so soon because there's no doubt he and I would have become good friends. Stu was on the Australian Olympic taekwondo team before injuring his knee and deciding to come work in Japan. Anyway, as it was his second to last night of work we decided to go for ...