Stoat - Where?

Poor Service – At Last

Well it’s been some time coming but I’m glad to say I’ve finally encountered some poor service in Japan! It’s a little taste of home, all the way over on the other side of the world! The journey home for New Year was another long one, so we broke it up by stopping off in Kobe for a couple of hours. We decided to try out China Town and stopped off in a little place near the gate. China Town in Kobe, incidentally, isn’t worth going to see if you’ve seen any others. It’s small, practically featureless and Manchester’s, Liverpool’s and San Francisco’s all beat it hands down for interest.

And for food, it turns out, as we chose a restaurant that was far from great. By now, I’m used to be stared at or totally ignored, but the waitress there really went out of her way to let us know we weren’t welcome. From throwing down the menus, to walking away in the middle of ordering, to serving the food cold and actually leaning and turning away from us as she served it, it was as if she was consciously trying to get rid of us. She succeeded. We left fairly quickly as the food was average, the restaurant was really spartan and the general atmosphere really lame. She managed the rare feat, in subzero temperatures, of making it colder inside than out, but at least did us the courtesy of smiling as she took our money. Word to the wise, guys. I’ve heard some great things about Kobe and definitely plan to go back to the city, but there’s no way I’ll be going back there. It’s just not very good.

Now that’s out of the way, best be getting ready for New Year’s. After a lot of travelling I’m going to stay local and will probably end up in Bierhall with most of the other gaijin in Gifu.