RSVPstyle

Day 9: Kobe—Where’s the Beef?

Lissa Kobe, the city on the Inland Sea. And the home of Kobe beef!

Kobe and Hiroshima are two big cities that were impacted by World War II. I didn’t realize Kobe was bombed too, because it was an important maritime port, even though we don’t hear about it because it wasn’t the atomic bomb. One-fourth of Japan’s imports and exports pass through this port.

Cathy Once again, we were fortunate to have a friend from Hawaii act as our guide. Ayaka, who is Nicki and Keri’s friend from school, along with her mom Mayumi, told us they would show us around, even though it was Mayumi’s first time in Kobe. She is originally from Osaka.

Being that we would be setting sail early evening, we really did not have a lot of time. The first thing we did was go to Mount Rokko, which was another one of those cable cars up to the top and again we had the bad luck of having an overcast day, just like in Hong Kong.

After that, everyone said you have to experience the Japanese department store.

Lissa No, I said you have to experience the Japanese department store. That’s my favorite experience—so many floors, and every floor has something different. One floor women’s clothing, one floor men’s, two floors of restaurants, and oh my God, there’s a supermarket downstairs. My favorite is the basement—there’s two basements usually, one for sweets and one for food, from fresh vegetables to meats to okazuya to all different kinds of sushi and raw fish and things I’ve never seen before staring at you.

There was one saleslady, she was talking to Keri in Japanese and she put a crab in her hand and poor Keri, the crab was alive and Keri screamed and the crab went flying in the air!

So what did you think of the department store?

Cathy I thought it was expensive.

Lissa What about the layout?

Cathy I thought it was very nice. Reminded me of Harrod’s in London. The salespeople were so incredibly polite. They kept bowing at you until they couldn’t see you any more.

By now we’re all hungry, so we went to a noodle shop on one of the top floors and my dad ordered the curry udon. When his food arrived the waitress brought him a bib! We were all laughing—he said, did I get a bib because of this dish or because I’m a senior citizen?

Lissa I thought this would be my day to get Kobe beef. Unfortunately we didn’t have time because we had to get back to the ship early.

Cathy The closest we came to Kobe beef were pictures of it around town. So we snapped a shot of the pictures!

Lissa On the way back we saw —
I thought this was unusual—these modernized Japanese kimonos.

Cathy Those weren’t just Japanese dresses—they were very interesting wedding dresses. It was crazy. The mannequins were on the street. Right next to a rack of magazines.

Kobe is such a progressive-looking city, and then all of a sudden we saw these two women wearing traditional kimono with obi, and tabi on their feet. Keoni snapped a quick picture as they walked by. Just a contrast of the old and the new.

Then we had to rush back on board the ship because we would be setting sail at sunset. As we pushed away from Kobe—

Lissa We met in The Bistro for another cappuccino, with Keoni and Keri taking in the sunset.

Cathy At dinner that evening we were in for a real treat. We were hoping we’d be having Kobe beef, but on this night our head waiter, Roland, cooked tableside for us. He’s such an entertainer! We had met Roland on another cruise and we even shared one New Year’s Eve in Hawaii with him a few years back, he’s such a fun guy!

So he made something very special for our table that night, this fresh Bolognese pasta that he called Roland-aise pasta! Darrell said it was the bomb. Not only was Roland cooking, he was sharing all the secrets to his recipe. I’m going to attempt it soon!