Hotel Viamare Kobe

... say the Japanese are reserved conformists!!);
- Our hostel, where despite staying in cheap dorm beds, has a marble entry, super helpful staff and plays Christmas carols in the foyer all day long;
- The bathrooms with automatic lights, soap dispensers and taps. And completely unfathomable control panel for the toilet.
- Awesome beer... which maybe I`ve had enough of for now.

... the age of 33 months at the latest, and then they become well-known beef brands such as Kobe beef and Matusaka beef. The newborn calves I saw were beautiful with fine and shiny black hair, and they already had an air of dignity about them fitting of Tajima cattle.

Incidentally, Kobe beef has never been exported from Japan, but apparently this may change in the future. I hope those who live outside Japan will get to taste delicious Kobe beef for themselves sometime soon.

... twenty four hours were a complete write-off. We just sat in our depressing box room feeling a bit sick and washing our clothes in the sink because it was too expensive to do it in the hotel! Oh dear....

Osaka is a bit of a nothing city to be honest with not very many sights but it was a pretty good introduction to Japan. It was also nice to spend some time getting to know Japanese people who are sooooooo different from the Chinese and, indeed, any other nation ...

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... I thought about how God is always looking out for us. He saw how my happy go lucky mood for the day had taken a turn for the worst. He realized, before I did, that I was no longer appreciating all the good things that had happened over the day and was instead stuck in a rut, assuming the worst. He knew this wasn't my style, and that it would be a shame to let such a great day go to waste. So he helped me out~ working through the people closest to me to bring me back on track. Amazing!

... influence on the city, it's a very popular holiday destination for the Japanese as its such a clean, friendly and different city. Sadly, a major earthquake hit the city on the 17th January 1995 killing many thousand people. The city however has taken advantage of it's misfortune to build a really modern, and attractive place to visit, live and work. Cherry blossom trees line the main boulevard leading to the station and al-fresco ...

I'll admit I was a little disappointed when I found out that I would be living and working in Kobe. It is after all, a city of only 1.7 million people. I imagined it to be a bit like Adelaide, and after enjoying my cosmopolitan lifestyle in Melbourne for the past eight years, I certainly wasn't enthralled by the prospect of living in a place like Adelaide. Osaka or Kyoto seemed like cities more suited to me. After my first real trip ...

... a way of raising funds for the victims and their families and also to inspire hope and pride, the city officials decided to stage a festival. The Luminarie was the end result. It is held every year in the run up to Christmas, although strangely, due to New Years being more important, it is dismantled a couple of days before Christmas Day. Every year it gets bigger and better and ...

... and tea ceremony, while at the same time, as sexualized objects of desire, although generally of the unfulfilled, unattainable sort. Kind of like salon mistresses in Europe of the eighteenth century, they host large parties of businessmen and politicians in tea houses of the Gion district, lubricating their interactions, filling awkward silences, and creating a sense of camaraderie with their witty, erudite, and perhaps slightly suggestive conversation. Or at least that's what we've ...

... bar and ask if they know where the P&W is. We step into Shot Bar Feet and try to communicate with Yusuke and Kaori, sometimes successfully, mostly unsuccessfully, for an hour or so. It's hard to understand, both ways, but the Japanese people are so patient and they love if you even try to speak Japanese, even if you totally butcher it. The strange thing is that the Japanese have a very hard time speaking English and an even harder time ...