Mar. 2, 2013

We had breakfast at the hotel, packed up, and then took a cab to the Kobe airport. There were a few intermittent clouds and a very cold wind chill. We even got a few quick snow flurries while waiting for the cab. Kobe airport is mostly for national flights, so checking and security screening went smoothly and quickly. I was amazed to see that 90% of the space devoted to selling was all food.

There were more food vendors on the second level including one that was making a specialty of the Osaka - Kobe area, Takoyaki which is basically a fritter type octopus ball.

...well it looked good, but I guess the airport variation was just a bit too fast of foods. Too bad because it seemed that they would have been delicious if they had just been cooked a bit longer.

Just like in the hotels, we were seeing amazing flower arrangements in the airports too.

When we checked in for our flight we were told that the weather 700 miles to the north in Sapporo was snowy with building winds. Our flight was still a go, but the possibility of cancellation was a reality. We went through security and waited. Finally, 15 minutes before departure, our flight #175 was cancelled due to heavy snow and high winds.

We left the gate and went to get our bags. Luca immediately began working on plan B. He managed an early morning flight to Sapporo in hopes that the weather would clear and that we could still visit Sapporo. It took about an hour to make the morning flight arrangements and get us into a hotel back in Kobe for the evening. We hopped on the Airport train and headed back to Kobe for our check in at the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel.

We rode the train through 6 stops then disembarked in the heart of Kobe.

A quick cab ride saw us at the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel perched right next to the Kobe Shinkansen station and the edge of the nearby mountains . We checked in and had some time to kill before dinner...

The view from the 37th Floor...

We decided to venture out on foot as we were not too far from a major shopping district in Kobe. When we started out, as you can see in the beginning of the next video, we got a few intermittent snow flurries. We walked at least 25-30 blocks, if not more.

Vending machines with drinks are everywhere to be found on the streets in Japan. The machines are filled with a diversity of them including coffee, which the Japanese love. In some machines you can even have the bottle or cans dispensed hot or cold.

Sea Butterflies (Sea Strawberries in Genova)

Micro Tomatoes...

We made it all the way to Sannomiya Station in the heart of Kobe. There were shops galore. Luca was without a scarf or a muffler and the wind chill was starting to drop, so he went to buy one. Darrell and Lucio found a Mariage Frères tea salon in one of the department stores. They decided to have tea. I poked around the department store looking mostly at some of there food offerings before joining Darrell and Lucio for tea. Luca found a muffler and joined us for tea as well. Because our flight to Sapporo was cancelled, we had to miss the winemaker's dinner at Bar e Ristorante Genovese in Sapporo featuring Lucio's Vignalta wines. This lent our trip a moment where good technology let us be a part of the dinner despite our cancelled flight. I was carrying a mobile MIFI internet hot spot, which I rented from Japan Wireless. It gave very good service and pretty fast connections, so Lucio was able to do a video Skype call to the restaurant. He sent his best wishes, as did Luca, then introduced the Genoa born chef owner to Darrell mentioning that Darrell also comes from Genovese heritage. To anyone traveling in Japan wanting reliable internet service, I can definitely say Japan Wireless was well worth the $8.00 a day cost.

It was approaching dinner time and the long walk combined with good tea gave us all a good appetite...but where to eat? Dinner was so good at Aragawa last night that Darrell said we need to go again. He was yearning for another Sanda H Bone steak, so we hopped in a cab and drove to Aragawa for round two.

Tonight...the Mount Eden 2008 Cab Excellent water from Kobe

Dessert; House cheesecake souffle, regional strawberry, house vanilla bean ice cream drizzled with V.E.P. Yellow Chartreuse.

Dinner was wonderful again. The wine went so well with the H Bone strip. The meat was in a class by itself, but we enjoyed this style of beef better when cut and cooked into individual steaks like last night's dinner rather than a whole piece of meat cooked and then cut into portioned servings. The H Bone strip was done pretty rare in the center and the texture of this meat was better suited at medium rare. Mind you, this is not a complaint, merely a review based on our preference. Delightfully satisified with dinner, it was time to go back to the hotel to get some sleep as we had to be back at the Kobe airport by 6:30 am to catch our 8:00 am flight to Sapporo. Upon checking the weather report before going to bed, it appeared that there would be a window of opportunity to make it to Sapporo in the morning.

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