Today we’ve finally got some downtime to catch up on what’s been going on. Thursday we went to Nara with Atoine and his parents. Antoine is taking the hands off approach to his parents’ visit. They are staying in Kobe and he’s not really taking any time off to do anything with them. Thursday was an exception, and so we met up with them in Osaka.
We introduced ourselves to his parents because Antoine hadn’t arrived yet, and they seemed really happy to chat with English speakers. Antoine’s dad spoke with a thick French accent that was really hard for me to pick up. His mother spoke clearly and so it was much easier to follow what she said.
Once Antoine showed up we navigated our way to the JR trains and caught a series of trains towards Nara. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there – the last time I went to Nara I cut through Kyoto, so it was a new route for me. It worked out, though, and we arrived OK. I got directions in Nara from a nice college student who went way above and beyond in describing how to get where we wanted to go.
We toured around Nara all day, and then headed back to Kobe to have dinner. We went to the Belgian beer place, and met Kuniko there, and then tried to go to Asian Days – an all-you-can-eat dim sum place. Unfortunately, the wait was too long, so we went instead to a yakiniku place that I knew about. We gathered around the hot grill and cooked up several plates full of meat.
Afterwards we said goodbye to Antoine’s folks. They are considering a trip to Hiroshima on their own, so I hope that works out for them.
Friday we went for a drive around the southern Kansai area, but first stopped in at a local restaurant for Akashi-yaki. Akashi-yaki is just like takoyaki – little balls of dough with a boiled octopus piece inside. The difference is that you eat Akashi-yaki by dipping the balls into a bowl of broth and ground up hot peppers.
After three plates of Akashi-yaki we walked back to the house, and then jumped in the car and headed to Tarumi. Tarumi has some good views of the Akashi bridge, and we thought we might do a little shopping there, too. Mark found an ATM that worked with his bank card, so we were rolling in dough after a visit there.
Once we had finished shopping in Tarumi, we hit the road for some random driving around. We somehow ended up near Kobe Winery, so we bought some snacks there even though the tasting room part of the facility was already closed.
At home we were definitely Miller time. We are working on drinking Asahi beer just because there is a chance to win a refrigerator robot that pours beer for you. Kuniko drank wine and we sat around drinking and resting until dinner time. We went to Ito Yokado for dinner and ate at the Korean restaurant on the third floor. It was new food for Mark, and I think he enjoyed it.
We got home and played some very competitive games of “Sorry” using the new board that Mark brought. Kuniko was taking it very seriously, and wouldn’t let us quit until she won a game.
Saturday we got up early and met up with a gang of friends in Sannomiya. We met up with Tamura sensei and her boyfriend, Yuri and her mom, and one of Kuniko’s ex-coworkers from Shoyo high school. Together we caught a train to Kyoto, and spent the day sightseeing around there. We went to a couple of new places for me, and managed to avoid huge crowds. We did get stuck in some long lines of people marching down the streets shopping, but for the most part we were able to move fairly easily around the city to see what we wanted to see.
At the end of the day we went to a tea house and had some authentic Kyoto green tea, and then we all caught trains home. On the way back I coordinated with Yasu and invited him over to dinner for pizza. Mark had wanted to try Japanese pizza, so this was his big chance. He agonized over the menu, and finally we got some pizzas to try out and we ordered. Yasu had brought loads of alcohol and by the end of the night we had supplemented that alcohol with some sho-chu that Kuniko’s father had given us.
It might have been tough on Mark since Kuniko and Yasu and I lapsed into Japanese quite a bit, but it was a highlight to see Mark trying to explain a air quotes and a penis pump to Yasu. Finally we sent Yasu pretty drunk with a bottle of sho-chu for his family to drink.
