The semester is quickly coming to an end now but everyone is still in a state of denial. Finals are coming up in all our classes and we’re all clamoring to study while trying to live it up for the last couple of weeks. A friend and I decided to head to Kobe on Sunday since he’d always wanted to go see Kobe and it would be a nice trip to reward us for the 8-page paper and presentation we had just finished for Japanese Art in the Kansai Area.
Kobe, home of the famously expensive Kobe beef. We didn’t have a chance to try it for our wallets couldn’t quite handle the hefty 10,000 yen price tag of a Kobe beef dish. Nevertheless, we explored other parts of the town like the Kachoen, or Bird Park. Kobe is known for it’s Biology-focused University, therefore, they had opened up this vast green house to be the home of numerous birds from around the world. There were gorgeous toucans which wil land on your arm so you can feed them and parrots and parakeets that enjoyed petting. It was a really cool place, but at the same time strange as well, to think that such a western-like place existed in Japan. There were also a pond where you can put your hands and feet in so that fish can nibble on them, which was unbearably ticklish. After the Kachoen, we went to Kobe’s famous Chinatown, which had tons of Chinese inspired foods like steam buns and mooncakes. We must had spent at least 2000 yen buying food from those vendors. Our last stop was Mt. Rokko, which supposed to offer one of the best night views in Japan named 10 million dollars view. It was a beautiful scenery, seeing the light up city, all the buildings seems to be sparkling in the night. The harbor afar was also grogeous with its lighted ships floating on what seem to be a black sheet of nothingness.
Later in the week, our dear RAs threw our seminar house a farewell party composed of pizza, chips, and soda. It wasn’t anything fancy but we could feel the family air that our house had developed over the past few months. Everyone that lived in Seminar House 4 knew that this is the best house out of all that KGU had. Even though there are close to 70 of us, we all knew each others name and at one point or another, had hung out, cooked dinner, or cleaned the kitchen together. Although we made friends that were from other seminar houses a
