didn't get beef, but did get sake

Ahoy,

Our final day in Osaka we made it to the Osaka castle as our last Osaka sight. We decided the day would be better spent elsewhere. It started snowing/hailing while we were there. A shuddered as students ran around the castle in shorts and tanks practicing for track or PE (?), while it was snowing. He noted that he can no longer complain about extreme weather. We walked up to the castle and left for Kobe. Also, noted this castle would be far more difficult to invade than Tokyo castle.

Within 20 minutes we arrived and made our way to the museum and brewery. There are a lot of sake breweries here because the water and weather is optimal for its production here. After wandering in what I thought to be the general vicinity of our destination, we found it. It's always a game to get to wherever we're going because I can't read the street signs, and there are often no street signs. The museum was interesting and had videos narrated in English. The modern day factory is next door, but the original factory is the traditional Japanese looking building the museum is in now. We sampled some products and purchased a bottle.

We moved onto a neighborhood called Kitano, where foreign expats lived so there are a lot of interesting houses with unique and varied architecture from around the world. At first we went the wrong way, and by some miracle found what we were looking for. There were lots of neat houses here, A got a hot chocolate at a Starbucks that was a classic Victorian. I think he was more smitten than I because he's from SF. And everyone else was taking pictures of the interior. To me, it's simply an American export.

Our final Kobe sight would be the waterfront. On the way was Chinatown, which we noticed was way more Chinese than we expected. We tried to cut through a hotel, but it did not have a door where I wanted it to. A hotel employee escorted us to the path. There was a memorial about the earthquake in 1995. It showed how crumbled the city once was. This display put a whole other perspective on the city we had just walked through. It's amazing what modern engineering can do in terms of disaster recovery. And what human willpower can endure. I could not tell that the city was in shambles so recently.

We hopped on the train back to Osaka to have dinner in the sketchy neighborhood near our hotel. We stumbled into a place that was just near closing, and A even got street food after. He still dreams of that food on a stick he got from the street vendor.

 chillingly windy,
jt