Winding down…

Today is our last day, we went to Otosan’s 1yr. memorial ceremony today…
It snowed in the morning. As we had to get up and started early I did not plan to go Tai Chi, which was just as well since I do not think they had it in the snow.

Yesterday and last night we went out to Kobe and hooked up with a couple of new friends. I met with the instructor of Kobe Kung Fu, Sifu J. He has been teaching in Kobe for some 6 yrs or so. We met after his Sat class, and chatted about kung fu, life, etc. He offered to be whatever help he could on me getting set up In Japan. We spoke of doing seminars to support each other. It was a good meeting, he has a good heart seems like. A quiet guy like myself. Afterward he made sure I got on the correct bus to visit Mi-chan’s, who he also knows, and lives very close to. He waited for me at the bus stop, having got there first on his bike, to direct me to the correct condo. As it happened Mi-chan was on the balcony and spotted us and invited Sifu J up for a visit as well.

We stood on the Balcony and chatted about the similarities of being married to a Japanese wives and about life in Kobe and things like how I can get my swords in to the country and misc stuff about Kobe.

It was time to move on. We invited Sifu J and his wife to join us that evening and we all headed off. Mi-chan took me around Kobe on a walking tour of Downtown. Interesting place, lots of small shops, clubs, stores, restaurants, and what not. Sometimes feeling very Japanese, sometimes feeling not at all like Japan, well other than the cuites with the short skirts, high boots or socks and the small streets with Kanji signs. After sitting in the park for a bit, getting a buzz off of Shu-Hi, it all had a bit of surrealalisticness (is that a word) about it.

After awhile our wives joined us. Sister and her husband were suppose to join us, but brother was just back from a week of being on the road with business trips so was too burnt out. There was suppose to be another International couple, but for whatever reason they choose not to come also. So it was just the four of us.
We went to an Izakaya for dinner and drinks. They played Jazz music as background, it was nice but a bit on the loud side with us right under a speaker. We had good food, drinks, and chatting. I tried a couple of new dishes, yum yum.

Our next stop after a bit of walking is a little bar. We go in for a few drinks and shortly later Sifu J and his wife join us. That was good some more energy to the mix. We guys sit on one side of the table and we discuss, life in American, life in Japan, team work with my Kung Fu and Sifu J’s, misc stuff. The ladies sat on the other side of the table and talk about, I have no idea. They were going on in Japanese and enjoying themselves.
We wrapped up the evening shortly after as Lady Zen and I had to catch the train back to Osaka. We got home shortly after midnight.