This weekend was a pleasant surprise. Although I really didn’t have any events officially planned other than a dinner on Friday, we got a lot done and had plenty of time to relax.
First up was dinner on Friday night with three of my former students. Since returning from Vietnam Kuniko and I have long lamented the lack of delicious Vietnamese food in Kobe, and the best of the bunch – Com Vietnam – is quite good, but far from authentic. So when my student suggested this place, I didn’t hold out much hope. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant called Com Coka, and it was great. The cook has lived in Hanoi, and you could tell from the flavor that he learned well while he was there. Everything was delicious, but I especially liked the steamed spring rolls, and the pho bo. Good pho is hard to find, but this was perfect. So I’m happy to report that there is a place that serves excellent Vietnamese in Sannomiya. Finally.
On the way home I dropped in at Wine Bar D, and he had a bottle of Heitz Zinfandel open – perfect timing. I was hoping that Kuniko might be partying in the area and we could meet up, but as it turned out she had headed home already, so I enjoyed the wine and some prosciutto and then headed on down the road myself.
Kuniko went to see a student off in Osaka, so I spent Saturday morning relaxing around the house – doing laundry and watching a pretty documentary called “The Interrupters”, about a Chicago area organization called Cease Fire that has former gang members on the streets trying to prevent street violence before it happens. I highly recommend the movie if you have a chance to see it, and the scenes of life in Chicago were a stark contrast to what I am used to here in Kobe. Eye opening.
Kuniko got home in the late morning, and so we went to do a little car shopping. We’re thinking about getting a new car, and Kuniko had been torn between a Mazda Axela and a Honda Fit Shuttle. Since she already has a Mazda Demio that is getting on in years, we went to look at the Mazda first. The sales guy was completely low pressure, and you could tell that there was a lot of room to negotiate. Mazda is not the most popular car here in Japan so he was doing his best to make a deal. Kuniko really likes the design on the Axela, and we talked about price and options and it was very reasonable. Just like in the USA the guy wanted us to make a decision that day, but we still had another car to look at. When we said that we were going to look at a Fit Shuttle he looked visibly crestfallen and started cutting the price even lower. We got out of there quickly, after giving a false promise of returning once we finished at Honda.
Over at Honda sales are going strong. The Honda Fit is a very popular car here because of the compact size. Japan is one place where the roads are extremely narrow, the parking spaces are tight, and small is good. We wanted to look at the Fit Shuttle because it is a little bit bigger than the regular Fit, and we both liked the looks of it. As it happened, there was a new Fit Shuttle sitting out front of the dealership that was a display model. It hasn’t been driven on the street – not even for test drives – but is trucked around to various Honda dealerships to show off. The end of the fiscal year is coming up next month in Japan, and that means that they wanted to sell that car and get another one out in front.
Talking with the sales guy at Honda, you could see there was a different vibe. They had the cars that everyone wants, so they had no big motivation to negotiate on prices. If you don’t buy it, somebody else will soon enough. All the same, we climbed in the Fit Shuttle, tried out the seats and poked around inside the car. It is not a hybrid model – only gasoline – but we were leaning that way anyway since we drive only about 2-3 times a month. The sales guy quickly saw that we seemed serious and he got serious too – and after talking about how we were torn between the Fit and the Axela at Mazda he started making deals as well. We left with a promise to think about it, and then skipped the Mazda dealer and did some grocery shopping before heading home.
The rest of the day we spent around the house – sipping champagne, looking through the car brochures, and doing research online. Kuniko made a really good crock pot recipe – simmered pork shoulder and onion in a tomato balsamic sauce. It was cooking for several hours and you could smell when the chemistry shifted and all the acids turned. The dish was awesome. I’m thinking we’ll have more crock pot dinners on the weekends.
Sunday Kuniko was off at a seminar all day, so I stayed home and did some reading, listening to music and relaxing around the house. Once Kuniko got home we talked more about the cars and we decided in principle to go with the Honda Fit Shuttle. We haven’t settled on a final price, and there is some more negotiation that will happen on options and such, but we are decided. The salesman was happy to hear from us on the telephone, and he came over to our house to give us some paperwork to hold the car temporarily until we settle on price. So I think next weekend we’ll finalize all that stuff, and then two weeks after that the car should be ready for us to pick up. Good news! Here’s some information on the Honda Fit Shuttle (in English).
Well, back to work! It’s raining today and tomorrow, so at least it’ll be warmer…
