Yesterday I went to Kobe to meet up with a couple of JETs that I had met in Los Angeles. They both come from the LA area, and are really fun to hang out with. We had a miscommunication on where we were going to meet, and ended up spending several hours looking for each other all over Kobe. Only one of us had a cellphone, so that made it pretty difficult to track each other down. Eventually we got it figured out, and went into the Kitano area of Kobe.
We were pretty starved, so we went into a ramen shop and had some quick noodles. While I was walking around I found a bookstore that had an English section, and ended up paying hardcover prices for some paperback books. I got Stephen King’s The Stand, and Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo. They were almost $20 each, but they are both huge books that I will probably read more than once, so I think it was worth it.
We walked around and found ourselves in a British pub drinking Guinness and sharing a shot of Ballantines. The staff were kind of snobby, though, and I think they get a lot of foreigners in there. The vibe was OK, but not that great. They also charged a 10% “service charge” for no apparent reason.
Afterwards, we hopped through a few bars, and a cafe for iced coffee. The cafe was interesting because it was part of the Motomachi shopping area. Among tiny shops full of toys, junk, antiques, and electronics, the cafe was a refreshing change. We walked in and removed our shoes, then sat on tatami mats and ordered up some iced coffees. It was nice to sit for a while and relax – the decor was very traditional Japanese, with some original artwork by the owner. She came out and talked with us a little bit, and Nel decided that he was going to come back quite often. Nel’s fiance is kind of an artist herself, so it looks like a good place for them to bring out some creative energy.
We kept walking through Motomachi towards the Kobe train station, and stopped in here and there. The guys weren’t too adventurous – nobody wanted to go into a bar that they couldn’t see inside, and so we had to really be picky. We did try a Japanese Jamaican Rasta bar, but they weren’t open yet. I just wanted to see a Japanese guy with dreadlocks. We went into one karaoke type bar and after sitting down, they explained to us that we needed to pay 3000 yen ($25) each just to be in the place, and that beers were 1000 yen ($8) each. We got the hell out of there and down the street found a two story bar called “Like, Like”. We sat down in the bar on the first floor, and instantly liked the place. The staff were very friendly, and they talked about baseball and strange Japanese habits with us. They had Bass in bottles for 600 yen ($5) each and even Corona in bottles. Nel and Antoine were drinking red wine, and we proceeded to get pretty drunk, joking with the staff and other customers. The place is owned by a big surfing fan, so there were Hawaiian things all over.
After having a great time at Like, Like, we checked the time and realized that although I could probably get home, Antoine would probably miss the last train. Nel offered to let us stay in his apartment. His fiance is still in Tokyo, so he has the place to himself for a while. We staggered over to the station, with the staff from Like, Like coming out to wave goodbye to us.
Nel led us to his hometown, which was very close by. We hiked up the hillside to his apartment, with Antoine trying to figure out how he could have picked up on some of the girls in the bar. Finally we arrived at the top of the hill, and fairly quickly crashed out.
