Jesus of subherbia

The continuing saga of my parents' visit last month:

It was a rainy and overcast Osaka that greeted us at the airport. The first objective was of course to find the hotel, which involved taking a monorail, a subway, and a not inconsiderable walk. While navigating the labyrinthine subway system, my parents' wheeled luggage made an improbably loud clatter that was initially amusing, then embarrassing, and eventually just irritating.

The hotel turned out to be a little on the basic side - my room contained a pair of boxers that no-one had seen fit to remove. I could see that the parentals were a little apprehensive, but my standards for living conditions are substantially lower, so I was unconcerned. Never doing any housework is its own reward, but it comes with the added bonus that one doesn't get freaked out by cheap, sketchy hotels.

By this point we were starving and morale was starting to flag, so we found a nice little place to eat, and during the meal I hastily improvised a sightseeing itinerary for the rest of the day. I decided to take us to Osaka's harbour area, which like that of many big Japanese cities, is an archipelago of oddly geometric artificial islands. The skyline was dominated by a huge ferris wheel, so we decided we wanted some of that action. We got a special transparent car, allowing us to peer vertiginously past our feet at the wheel's hub. Of course, what with the rain and low-level cloud, we weren't really seeing Osaka at its best.

Next to the ferris wheel was a strange place that was like a shopping mall crossed with a fairly lacklustre amusement park. The shops were weirdly overspecialised: there was one dedicated entirely to Hello Kitty, another to One Piece (the anime currently dominating my students' pencil cases), another to Studio Ghibli, and even one selling nothing but Crocs, those strange rubber shoes that I've never understood the point of. Amongst these merch emporia were 'attractions' like a petting zoo and some kind of ninja house, complete with miserable-looking goats and a valiantly-attempting-to-conceal-his-misery stealthy assassin, respectively. We got some ice cream and watched the ships coming in and going out again. After that we took a stroll around the docks, whose most striking feature was the sturdy 3m tsunami walls ringing the perimeter. This served as another illustration of just how little can be done to stop a 10m wave.

With the sun setting, we got back on the subway and headed for Osaka Castle. Of course, it was closed by this time, but it was still very pleasant wandering around the surrounding park, the towering structure shining bright white in the floodlights against a cloudy night sky. After that we called it a day, stopping off at a kombini for drinks and snacks on the way back to the hotel. Back in the room, sipping booze and eating rice crackers, my folks' cognitive dissonance spin machines were getting into gear: the hotel wasn't so bad really, it did the job, we've stayed in a lot worse before.

The next day's plan was Kobe, famed for it's premium beef and devastating 1995 earthquake. But before that, we had the excitement of the hotel's buffet breakfast. The Western and Eastern approaches to breakfast are rather dissimilar, and their collision usually tends to result in something entertainingly weird. I loaded my tray with rice, miso soup, nori (dried seaweed - you can use it to make improvised riceballs), salmon, sausages, whole little fish, pickled plums, sweet omelette, and other miscellaneous items. It was all a bit much for my parents, who stuck with toast, fruit salad, and yoghurt.

Deftly avoiding a train blunder (confusingly, 'Kobe Station' is nowhere near the city's CBD), we went straight for the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing loop bus. Now, I tend to be a little snooty about these things, as I don't like doing anything that's too overtly touristy. But my parents love them, and I have to concede, it was indeed a cheap and effective way to get around all the sights. Our first destination was a herb garden on a mountain overlooking the city. Kobe is a compact city, sandwiched between the sea to the south and steep mountains to the north. The place was accessed by cable car, so for the second time in 24 hours we found ourselves dangling in a perspex bubble, imagining the view we would be enjoying if it weren't for the clouds.

Predictably, the weather was even worse at the top, with visibility down to about 20m at times. We sheltered in the gift shop, allowing my parents to load up on horticultural / aromatic souvenirs. There were some indoor exhibits about herbs, spices, and perfumery, which mainly involved smelling various things. There was something surprisingly fun about this; one doesn't often get the opportunity to spend a morning subjecting oneself to pleasant olfactory stimuli. I'm not sure what my favourite smell is, but cinnamon would definitely be in my top 5.

With the rain showing no sign of stopping, we decided just to go for it and descend on foot, through the gardens. As we were getting soaked, and the flowers weren't really in bloom yet anyway, we didn't linger long. We did come across a big greenhouse with tropical plants, which made for a nice break. Further down, there was an impressive waterfall, but we were in no mood to dawdle - by this stage the contents of my wallet in my pocket were getting soggy.

Next stop was Chinatown for lunch and a wander around (the rain had subsided to a light drizzle), then we headed down for some more harbour action. We didn't really do anything at the harbour: there was a tower, but to my eye it didn't look tall enough to justify the asking price, and we also decided against taking a cruise around the bay on a garish pink galleon. So it was back to the loop bus once again, for a trip to Little Europe.

Kobe is unusually cosmopolitan for Japan, as it is the place where foreign merchants first started doing business. With their riches they built houses in the style of their homelands. The Japanese can't get enough of this, as they see Europe as having a dignified charm and mystique, rather symmetrical to how we tend to view them. Indeed, as we walked around we came across a Christian wedding, complete with a gaijin priest. Western-style weddings are gaining in popularity in Japan, illustrating the nation's fast-and-loose approach to religious rituals. There is a saying that Japanese people are born Shinto, marry Christian, and die Buddhist.

We had a quick look around a French-themed art gallery, which appeared to be named 'Line'. Only as I was leaving did I realise that 'Rhine' was the appropriate transliteration. We also had an overpriced 'spice tea' in a faux-Parisian cafe - it was quite a spice-heavy day, all in all.

Heading back into the city centre for the evening, we continued the European theme with a visit to a Belgian pub. As soon as you walk in the door of a place like this you know you are in for a fleecing, so you're best just to accept it and move on. Sure enough, we were given a little dish of nuts, which is kind of a symbolic gesture representing that there is a cover charge for entry. However, the place was undeniably nice, and I very much enjoyed my Leffe and Chimay.

After that it was time to get some food, which is always a little stressful for me as I am the only one who has any chance of reading the menus. Thus the decision of where to dine falls to me, which is a lot of responsibility. But on this occasion, I think I did rather well. We went to a gyoza (Chinese dumpling) bar. The menu (which was at least mercifully small) was entirely in kanji, even down to the numerals in the prices. This was not the sort of place your average tourist would be able to handle, but I pulled it off with aplomb. Furthermore, they were the best gyoza I've ever tasted.

Next time: Yet more rain, and the perfect day of sightseeing.