KOBE

Wow, we really didn't post since November. Sorry about that. I think we just started posting pictures and things to facebook and forgot to update this.

We're back now with some new happenings.

First! We made it to our week off and decided to go on a little road trip south to Kobe and Osaka. Originally we had intended to take a ferry to Hokkaido, but the cost and cold weather were too strong of disincentives.



Kobe:

We had a little bit of trouble negotiating the Japanese highway system because after all this time we still do not have an English map (a fact which would cause us a lot of grief later). After getting ourselves turned around a few times in Osaka, we found the road to Kobe and eventually Georgia spotted a tiny sign for our hotel.





Hotel:

The hotel turned out to be an incredible four-star business hotel overlooking the city from the foot of a nearby mountain. It was also located directly above a subway station which made travelling downtown very simple.










First up was a search for sneakers for Georgia. She bought some in Tokyo but unfortunately the salesman put the wrong pair in her bag so when we returned home, she was in for some serious disappointment. After a protracted search through the snobbish part of Kobe, we finally found the Onitsuka Tiger shoe store and Georgia found some cool new sneakers.























Next, we were off to Chinatown. We actually put off eating all day because we were looking forward to consuming more Shironpo (spelling might be off), which are basically pork dumplings sold by a street vender in sets of 4, that taste incredibly good. We stuffed ourselves with shironpo to such an extent that we decided not to even go to a restaurant. Instead, we returned to the hotel to do some research and find a night club and a steakhouse for later.












We changed and worked the internet for a while until we finally settled on a bar called Sally's Sports Pub. Supposedly this is a popular bar for gaijin's with a dancefloor and pool tables. It sounded pretty good to us and, besides, if it sucked we could ask some people there about other places in town. Sadly, the bar does not seem to exist anymore and I had numerous people stare at me, as though I were the world's biggest asshole for inquiring about a bar named SALLY'S SPORTS PUB in Japan. Oh well.

We settled for the only pub mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide called New Munchen Bar. It was a German style pub that seemed to only advertise Guiness beer. The place completely cleared out by the time we took our first sips and they ended up forcing us to pay and down our drinks so they could close up shop.


After that we decided to have another quick meal at a restaurant that promised to bring International people together in happiness (on their sign) and happened to have a giant fake watermill. I'm not sure what their international happiness sign was about, because inside nobody spoke English and the entire menu was strict Japanese food. Not bad overall though.



Wednesday night in Kobe isn't a real thrill. After the watermill restaurant we noticed that the crowds had thinned out substantially. Desperate for something to do we dropped by a gambling arcade and played the only non-gambling game in the place: Time Crisis 4.



Finally giving up on finding entertainment that doesn't involve singing (Georgia has permanently vetoed karaoke) we decided to return to our hotel. A little disoriented and with the trains shut down for the night we tap on the window of a taxi and shout our hotel name at him repeatedly until he nodded at us. Three blocks later, with the driver completely silent, we are back at our hotel. Not satisfied with the 10 dollar cokes and things in our mini bar we escape to a nearby Lawson convenience store and puchased coke and whiskey. Our hotel room drinking game consisted of drinking every time we heard 'ne' (nay) or when an NBA player misses a shot. The Jazz vs. Rockets game wasn't a good one because we watched for about 10 minutes and not one player sunk a shot. Shortly after we were done for the night.

At one point of our night we received a message from the front desk alerting us that our credit card payment through expedia had not made it to the hotel. Odd, since we had an email confirming our payment. So in the morning I called expedia.ca and was given a phone number that I had to forward to the hotel manager and he "would know what to do with it". Of course he had no idea and the phone number connected him to a company in the USA that sold headsets... so I called expedia again and was told that a fax would be sent to the hotel confirming our payment. The fax showed only "This page cannot be displayed". Finally, on my third call, the operator offered to call the hotel himself to make sure that everything was taken care of and he put me on hold to reassure me that it would be taken care of shortly and he could confirm.

10 minutes later the manager was still waiting for a phone call and the man had not returned. I ended up hanging up and paying in cash because the phone call was costing the hotel money and I was receiving a lot of pressure to end my wait on hold... besides we were supposed to be at the Osaka Universal Studios an hour earlier to beat the crowd.



As of now I still do not know if the hotel payment has been cancelled but I have a very angry series of phone calls and email to make.