Joss, Boar and Drinks on the 37th floor

In the week from boxing day to the 2nd of January, Mine and Basim`s friend Joss visited from the southern city of Kita Kyuushuu. Its already a bit debacle when Basim and I are together, so throw in another Cardiff legend in the shape of Joss, and for most of the week Duncan from Kyoto and you have a recipe for awesome disaster.



Amongst horrendous drinking binges, we did actually do some things of note. Firstly, we visited an all you can eat Brazilian meat joint followed by a stroll through harbour land. As a perfect example of how strange Japan can be, we saw two dog like creatures about the size of a small handbag running at about 2mph to keep up with their owner, whilst wearing human clothes. Just after this was a man singing "Your Beautiful" to the sea and a man who attracted so much attention from Japanese seagulls that he had drawn a crowed 50 strong.

After this we made it in into a modern park like area and posed for a few photos before heading to the Hanshin Earthquake memorial where a plot of land about 20m by 10m was fenced off as a testament to the earthquakes power. Old concrete water fronts and iron pillars were left twisted and smashed and there is no wonder there are still empty plots around the city today and that 5,000+ died. The city credits itself by even existing today. A video showed the end of my road, and a skyscraper that had buckled in the middle and was bent over like a winded man which no longer stands today.


Having been humbled somewhat, we headed back to Sannomiya via an impressive, if not small, China town. Flirting with the idea of retiring for the afternoon, we decided to head for the tallest building in the city and go to the top floor for kicks. What we found was a pleasant little bar that offered a panoramic view of the city. It was breathtaking, if not the scariest lift ride ever, considering it was a mostly glass lift and that it runs along the outside of the building.


Me and Duncan split from Basim and Joss to head home, and on the way we spotted 3 massive fully grown wild boar and proceeded to chase them through the back streets of north Kobe.


Joss forced a lot of complacency out of my system as far as local haunts were concerned, and running around building and finding a transsexual Santa, a brothel and a bar named "chance" whose door opens to nothing but an electrical circuit board are all classic lol moments. A more dignified discovery was that of a small French named shot bar. I love Whiskey now.


We also went to Universal Studios Japan and ate Kobe beef proper, but until I get hold of the photos I`ll resist blogging.