Trip To Japan Day 4

All of Day 4 was spent at the con, the poster session, and the stand-up banquet.

Bell tower, Kobe Portopia Conference Center

I did get to surprise MJ by calling her just as the clock at the con site let out a peal of bells.

Not only did they have a bell tower, but they also had a collection of figures that marched around in a little house at the base of it

World+Dog at the bell tower

I wanted an authentic Japanese lunch, so I went to the nearest Lawson’s kombini and bought a collection of bento items, including three different kinds of rice balls (really triangles), and a small loaf of curry bread. The rice balls were about as I expected, except that one of them had a tomagoyaki roll inside. The curry bread was a flat loaf, curry-flavored, stuffed with a small hot dog and curry paste. Sadly, there were no photos.

At the banquet I found out that Kobe is also famous for sake and for Japanese wine. Their red is a not-very-full-bodied Cabernet; the sake was mild-tasting and inoffensive, certainly better than the brands they carry at Safeway, but nothing to write the world about….um.

A drum-shaped sake container, with dipping cups

As the banquet was in the final stages of preparation, I noticed a kimono display.

Kimono at the Kobe Portlandia Hotel

That reminded me that I had promised to buy my grand-niece-in-law one. Well, I’m not prepared to shell out what’s needed for a kimono, but I can afford the lightweight summer version, the yukata. There was a nice hotel lady seeing to the preparations. I asked her if she knew of any places I could find yukatas, and she said she’d see what she could do. Half an hour later, she dug me out of the banquet. She didn’t have a list of places. She had a couple of samples and wanted to know if this was what I wanted. We then slipped up to the hotel shop that sold them, and I made my GNiL happy, along with the shop staff. That’s the highly helpful Nishio san on the right.

Nishio Tomoko and shop staff

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Tags: Japan, Kobe, SCIS-2012