Morning all! Fell asleep last night while trying to edit down the pictures from last night so here I am uploading the photos this morning instead. :D

First off, the mechanical/electrical wonder which is the toilet in our hotel room:



We took about a 45 minute train ride to Kobe to meet my cousin for dinner. She and her family used to live in the States at one point but they moved back to Japan when she was starting junior high. We've always been close so for me, it's kind of like seeing a mirror for how my life might have gone if I had moved back to Japan as well. She's doing quite well for herself since she's a busy exec for Proctor & Gamble Japan. It just so happens that she'll be taking a business trip to Hong Kong exactly at the same time we'll be getting off from PANDA so she's thrilled to get a chance to see Marika and we're hoping to have dinner together one night.

Of course, with the curse of taking pictures that I'm having this trip so far, I forgot to get a picture of her ...

The outside of the steak restaurant in Kobe where we ate:



And after ordering, the chef and our server busy at work. I was tempted to order that Guiness that they had sitting on the counter but wanted to make sure that I could safely take the train home afterwards.



Our first course - don't have a picture. I told you, the curse continues. It was shredded Kobe beef simmered with red wine, soy sauce, sugar, and ginger. Great flavor. It came with a small aperitif, compliments of the chef.

Our second course - a salmon/Chinese cabbage millefeuille with avocado sauce and Kobe beef tartar with salmon roe and monkfish roe sauce. Quite yummy.



Our 3rd course was a pumpkin/potato soup with some heavy cream swirled in. Once again, forgot to take a picture of it. Vegetables in Japan taste better than in the States for some reason.

And of course, our 4th course was the steak itself. This, I DID remember to take a picture of. The beef had amazing texture - buttery soft. While there was a lot of fat on the meat even after it had been cooked (cooked rare to enjoy the most of the flavor of the beef) but for some reason, the fat doesn't feel heavy. The flavor also permeated the rest of the vegetables and a small quantity of grilled garlic chips added an additional dimension to the meat's flavor.



And finally, dessert. This was an apple sherbet with slices of apple on top. Once again, not your regular apple - much sweeter than your typical red delicious.



(to be continued)