We went out on Saturday afternoon into Nankinmachi, the Chinese district of Kobe, where the celebrations had been carrying on for most of the week. Like most big events in Kobe this one was packed, with guards nervously calling out for people to keep shuffling along the one way streets in an orderly fashion. There were street stalls selling food along both sides but at least for the first part you wouldn't have had much luck stopping at one - a sea of impatient elbows and handbags behind would see to that. Eventually we came across a pagoda where the "Lion Dance" was being organised - around that, security guards held a rope to indicate where the audience could stand (Professional Picket 2011-present, I imagine on their resumes). We managed to avoid being jostled out the other side of the district and snuck under the rope just as the dance started.
Two very acrobatic men in lion-coloured pants puppeted each, scurrying around the area roaring at the crowd to the beat of drums and cymbals. Occasionally the music would crescendo and the lions would "rear up" by leaping into effortless shoulder stands. After a while, another character came out, mask painted with a mischievous grin, and after the resulting scuffle, one of the lions emerged with a scroll in his mouth that unfolded to cheers from the crowd.
I'm assuming it said "Happy New Year", but it could have been "cheer if you're stepping on Mike's foot". Once everyone had managed to untangle themselves from the crowd, we headed over to the station to pick up the rest of our party - about 10 of us in all. There were events happening all afternoon that we watched with mild interest, but for the most part Lisa and I were interested in raiding the hawkers along the sides of the street. Lisa managed to find Peking Duck which she was awfully pleased about, while I picked up an exotic-looking steamed bun folded in half around big pieces of pork; unfortunately when I went to order it, I found out that it was called a "Chinese Burger", so I wasn't being nearly as adventurous as expected. By this point we decided it was time to take a bit of a break, so we started walking over to Harbourland to kill some time. I obviously look far friendlier than I am, because I tend to attract odd people off the street and have a hard time getting rid of them. In this case it was a young fella from Kawanishi called Yusuke who seemed terribly interested in where we were all from - apparently he was kind of lost and decided we looked like we knew where we were going. We ended up at a dog-walking area and spent the next while playing with the dogs. An old guy rode up with two corgis - one ancient one in his basket and a young one in a little sailor suit running beside. They could play dead when you said "bang", they could stand up on their hind legs and much to new-friend-Yusuke's amusement, they could walk one another.
Before long, the light came out of the sky and it was time to say goodbye. "Thank you for the wonderful day," Yusuke said, without a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Everyone seemed skeptical that I had only known this guy for 40 minutes.
We headed back to the festival and squeezed in behind the crowd to catch the Dragon Dance, which is the more familiar long-tailed dragon whirled around by a team of dancers. A quick count gave me 4 beards - mine, Len's, the dragon's and...
I'm assuming she was part of the show somehow, otherwise I've just demanded the most insensitive photo of my life. Either way, we bid farewell to Nankinmachi and celebrated Chinese New Year in the most traditional way we could imagine - by eating Vietnamese food. There's a long weekend coming up and I dread to think of the possibilities; if these trends continue, by the end of the year we'll be washing our hair with baked beans and wearing toasters on our feet.
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