Rainy Day in Kobe

The baseball gods must be watching out for me, because they afforded me a much needed morning inside in Kobe, where I'm now writing a quick entry in my hotel's lobby before departing for Himeji Castle about 50 km west of here. I dragged myself out of bed this morning, after a very early bedtime, and showered to go and get something to eat. It was pouring and windy outside, and I wasn't quite sure what to do. Kobe's harbor is supposedly the thing to see while you're here, but I didn't really want to brave the elements to see a gray and deserted ferris wheel and some buildings. So I went back to my hotel's room, and flipped on the TV... only to see Zito on the mound against the Yankees! There's no better reason to stay inside on a rainy day than to watch your team take on the Yankees thousands of miles away. I'm guessing the only reason that the A's game was on Japanese TV (with Japanese commentators) on a Saturday morning is because they were playing the Yankees, so that's a bit of luck on my part.

I spent most of yesterday in Osaka, where Shino and I met up in the morning to check out Liberty Osaka, better known as the Osaka Human Rights Museum. The museum discusses discrimination against many minority and underprivileged groups in Japan, and particularly the activism of these groups in the Osaka/Kansai area. It includes the obvious groups, which are victimized in the US - women, gays/lesbians, those living with HIV/AIDS - and those particular to Japan, such as Koreans, the outcast class Bunraku (composed of those who worked in slaughterhouses and as undertakers in Edo-period Japan, similar to the caste system in India) and native Ainu and other ethnic peoples.

We grabbed a quick lunch at a food court near the harbor (where I sampled takoyaki and soba-meshi, which is chopped soba noodles stirfried with fried rice) and then paid 2000 yen to see the Osaka Aquarium. I was delighted to see sea otters and a large exhibit about Monterey Bay... made me a little homesick, even. The Aquarium was filled with screaming school children on field trips, so Shino and I took our time looking at the exhibits to let them pass. The highlight of the aquarium was definitely the giant spider crabs... Shino wasn't quite sure if they were edible, though!

Off to Himeji!