Breakfast at the ryokan was served in the small dining room. When we were provided an individual grill and an open flame we figured it wasn’t for ambiance – we started looking around at what the other Japanese guests were doing with it. Ah! Cooking the strange little flat fish! As we nibbled at theContinue reading “The flat fish sizzled…”
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The Ryokan Meal: Amazing
The set meal the ryokan staff served us in our room was beautiful and intricate. All the little covered dishes and boxes were delightful and always gave you a sense of a gift to be opened. The food was over the top. Tiny little stacked items with nested items were all colorful and complementary. ThereContinue reading “The Ryokan Meal: Amazing”
Naked mistakes in Kurashiki
We made arrangements to stay at a ryokan in the historic district of Kurashiki about an hour south of Kobe. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese guest house – rice paper walls, tatami mat floors and futon. They serve your meals in your room and have a communal bath for the guests. We had noContinue reading “Naked mistakes in Kurashiki”
Goodbye Kobe
We said goodbye to Kobe and the MTS/Ocean conference to head off for some personal time. We also said goodbye to the hotel breakfast buffet which had been a delightful amalgam of cultural culinary surprises every morning. Near the train station we discovered a covered mall that had a dazzling array of shops and interestingContinue reading “Goodbye Kobe”
Italian dinner in Kobe
We met up for with Tom for dinner in Kobe after the conference. We hugged him and immediately peppered him with all the questions we hadn’t even been aware we’d been saving up, “What’s that yellow thing we keep tripping on?” He took us up the hill into an old neighborhood that was a fascinatingContinue reading “Italian dinner in Kobe”
Kobe train – rush hour crush
We ended up on the metro train at about 5:30, which seemed to be a high capacity time for travel. When the train arrived it was packed…like not one more person could possible squeeze into the train car packed. Yet the 15 people we were in line with thought otherwise – and we wadded inContinue reading “Kobe train – rush hour crush”
Kobe IKEA
Kaety’s suitcase blew its zipper upon arrival in Japan. We spotted an IKEA on the way from the airport on the local metro line and today executed a foray out to buy a new suitcase. We’ve spent a lot of time at IKEA’s so we were super curious what variations would be unique to aContinue reading “Kobe IKEA”
Japanese grocery store
Kaety has taught me that a great way to get a glimpse of another country’s inner workings is to visit their grocery stores. I was envious of the produce section – I love to cook and I saw things that we have little to no access to in the US…and certainly Newport. She always wantsContinue reading “Japanese grocery store”
Kobe Marine Technology Conference
We wanted to attend the session ‘Blue Economies of India’ this morning but the day 2 jetlag syndrome was hitting us both pretty hard. Sessions today included: ‘Plankton Image Classification via Multi-class Imbalanced Learning’, ‘Fish recognition from a vessel camera using deep convolutional neural network and data augmentation’, and evocatively titled ‘Application of deep learningContinue reading “Kobe Marine Technology Conference”
Nara and the big Buddha
Our MTS sessions ended at 3:30pm and the Big Buddha at Todai-ji in Nara closed at 5:30. We executed a metro gamble hoping we could choose all the rapid transit lines in spite of a steep language barrier and win the race against time. There was a short period of time as the clock nearedContinue reading “Nara and the big Buddha”