My koto teacher was in Kobe today the whole day. Aurelie and I had decided to show her around. She'd lived in Osaka for so long and had barely been in Kobe except for on special events, so it was really interesting to see her reactions on the differences between Osaka and Kobe.

We tried to be very flexible with our route and yet at the same time, cover a big area. So what happened was that we took her to the imported goods shops which she found very interesting because shops like those were/are pretty hard to find. We passed by the Kobe Mosque, went up to the old Ijinkan area (foreigners' residence one or two hundred years ago), went back down to Sannomiya, walked all the way to Chinatown and then Harbourland. Then we went back to Rokkomichi to karaoke to end the day.

It was really interesting because she was so interested in food culture. Like what I eat or what Aurelie eats, how we eat it, what kind of desserts we have etc. It was kind of enlightening in a way, how she said that food we eat is shaped by the culture and lifestyles that we have.

Anyway. My professor just sent a mail through to the mail-list and sped up the schedule for our first class. I'm going to be sooooo busy this semester!