I had a fun weekend – starting with an interview in Osaka on Friday afternoon. I ran down there based on an ad that I saw on the web for a teaching position in Kobe\/Osaka. I’ve been looking for something a little more permanent in the Kobe area, but as it turned out this position was for a part time position closer to Osaka. It might be better for me to stay busy in this area with my current company, but maybe in the future they might have some work for me. We’ll see….<\/p>\n
The plan was to meet up with Kuniko in Kobe that evening after she got work and grab some Mexican food, so I got in some Osaka time walking around Nanba and Shinsaibashi. The weather was cloudy and a little humid, but comfortable enough for walking around. I don’t get to Osaka much, so it was cool to walk around without a schedule and explore a bit.<\/p>\n
Back in Kobe I killed time drinking wine at Sigassiga. The staff are always really friendly, and they’ve got a pretty good wine selection. I had an Australian blend of Viognier, Gewurz and Sauv Blanc that was refreshing, and then a glass of Cline Syrah to wrap things up. I really earned my winegeek cred when I name-dropped Charlie Tsegeletos – the sommelier was a big fan of Cline and knew the name well. Thanks, Charlie!<\/p>\n
Kuniko and I went to the new location of our favorite Mexican restaurant – Gitchi. We used to always go there when it was located near Kobe station – we were very eager to try it out now that it had moved to Sannomiya. Here’s the quick review – it sucked. <\/p>\n
At the old location we put up with the grouchy owner because the food was good (for Japan). Unfortunately the food was pretty blah – so there isn’t much left to recommend at Gitchi. The prices aren’t bad, I guess. The quesadillas are OK, but it is pretty hard to screw up a quesadilla. The tacos suffered from sweetened meat syndrome (why do Japanese people add sugar to taco meat?) and everything was just too bland for us. So with no good Mexican restaurant in Kobe that just leaves our own house as the best source of delicious Mexican food. Luckily we have a source for pretty much everything we need to make it. Still, it was a little sad – like mourning the passing of an old friend. Goodbye, Gitchi. Maybe we’ll come back in a year and see if you’ve improved.<\/p>\n
Saturday Kuniko was off to Himeji to attend an overnight conference for her school, and I went into Kobe to attend a ship launching ceremony at Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Yoshi met me at the station with his wife and son and also some friends from the neighborhood. We walked about fifteen minutes to the shipyard and then followed a secured path to the waterfront. The ship was there in drydock – and it was huge. It was called the ‘African Kingfisher’, and according to the pamphlets we received it is 190 meters long and 31,000 tons. We could walk right up underneath it, and it was pretty impressive.<\/p>\n
There was about 20 minutes of pomp and speeches (including the breaking of a bottle of champagne) and then they let the giant ship slide down the rails into the water. It was a lot like a controlled fall, and it was amazing to think that they launch one of the these every two months. Once the ship is in the water they move to another dock and spend another two to three months finishing it up. I took lots of photos and a video the big ship sliding by – but it was with my digital camera so the quality ain’t great. Still, it was one of those events you’ll always remember.<\/p>\n
After the launching ceremony we all went to Harborland for lunch at a Korean restaurant, and there Yoshi and his wife invited us over to his place for dinner that night – they knew that Kuniko was gone for the night, and I think they were afraid I might starve to death. Since my schedule was open and I was having such a good time with them I accepted, and after running some errands around Akashi and Tarumi we took a bus out to their place.<\/p>\n
They’ve got a nice two-story house in an older neighborhood in Tarumi, and the place was really comfortable. There is a nice yard out back, and we spent most of the time sitting outside in the shade drinking beer and enjoying the beautiful weather. After we had arrived we heard a bell ringing outside, and Mamiko (Yoshi’s wife) sent us outside to buy tofu from a tofu salesman – kind of like the ice cream truck in the USA, this guy drove around selling tofu door to door. That was a new one for me.<\/p>\n
Mamiko made a series of delicious homemade pizzas with lots of interesting toppings (shrimp, lotus root, pesto and cheese!) I had bought a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy with some cheese and we had a great time sampling, eating and drinking. Mamiko is a lot like Kuniko in that they are both strong drinkers and they love pairing food with wine. Yoshi’s family really put on the hospitality – it was great night. <\/p>\n
Now it is Sunday night, and we’re taking it easy here at home. Tomorrow is Kuniko’s busy day of the week, so we’re taking advantage of the down time while we can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a fun weekend – starting with an interview in Osaka on Friday afternoon. I ran down there based on an ad that I saw on the web for a teaching position in Kobe\/Osaka. I’ve been looking for something a little more permanent in the Kobe area, but as it turned out this position […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-pE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}