Kobe Dumplings

On Friday, I went on a field trip to Kobe with the second year students. Kobe is a city just west of Osaka and we were on the bus for about an hour and a half. It was a really nice day, apart from all the rain.

Four big buses carried all the students and teachers. Each bus had a centre aisle with pairs of seats on either side. I sat all the way in the back on the only middle seat. All the girls sat on the left and all the boys on the right so I was the border region between two boys and two girls, as it happened four of the most talkative students on the bus. I played a card game with the boys and talked to the girls about Kobe, coffee, and sweets. Then they all played a card game called Jin-roh which they deemed too complicated to explain to me. Players drew hands and then most of them covered their eyes while one pointed at certain players silently to the dealer. When the players uncovered their eyes, it was announced who among them had died. I'm still not sure how strategy was involved or if any was.

We arrived at a parking lot by the bay. I knew Kobe has a Maritime Museum and it happened to be nearby but I didn't see any old ships. It wasn't until we were leaving that I saw this pretty tourist rig coming into the harbour:

First we all went to a building with a large assembly room with few chairs. Students sat on the floor in rows as they do for assemblies in the gymnasium at school. A couple of guys showed a Power Point with video about the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 that affected the region. Students were then given tasks designed to give them the impression of what it was like to survive in the aftermath. Groups of four or five students were given sets of cardboard boxes with which to make rudimentary little homesteads. Most of them managed to follow instructions and make their little houses. I laughed at one girl who first tried to make a rickety tower of boxes before abandoning her group and trying to sit with one who'd already finished making their house properly. She was scolded by a teacher but, had this been an actual emergency, I bet she'd do pretty well for herself.

After this, the students were given newspapers with which to make shoes. Finally, we all ate the lunches we packed or bought (I made sandwiches with pastrami and spinach on bread I'd baked on Wednesday) before setting off for Kobe's Chinatown.

All of the students were given 1000 yen (about ten bucks) and allowed to roam free for three hours, buying whatever snacks or souvenirs they liked. It was crowded and tricky to navigate all the umbrellas out for the rain.

I spotted a Spider-Man on one of the restaurant signs like the one I saw in Namba:

And then I saw another one:

A student later told me she saw a third. It seems to be a new tradition now in Japan for restaurants to invoke the blessings of Spider-Man.

I didn't want to spend very much money or eat anything that might disagree with me on the bus trip back. I watched enviously as students chowed down on candy apples and fried chicken. Many of the shops were selling some kind of panda dumpling that all the kids wanted. So I thought I'd get one and save it for when I got home. I got one packed with a pig dumpling:

As I expected, the pig was filled with ground pork. The panda turned out to have azuki bean paste. They were both pretty tasty and paired well enough with my Wild Turkey. Speaking of wild, I also saw this sculpture in Kobe on Friday:

A pretty fun town, Kobe.

X Sonnet #1788

The devil bear devours closet space.
A graceful rodent steals the hearts of soups.
Together, teams perceive a messy face.
Could Baby shuffle Hoyle cards in loops?
A spiky monster funds a dizzy band.
Without a trace of guilt, she called the ghast.
Required desert parts included sand.
But other stories told became the past.
Extorted tension trips condemning ice.
So happy waves were laughing late at lunch.
Eroding cliffs, the water chuckles twice.
Enough to give a god a hefty hunch.
If pig or panda face approached, we ate.
The fear of seven held by six was eight.