We are on the cruise (we are)

Last week ended almost without incident and contrary to my usual last lurch to the finish line, I found myself at home time with nothing but soft, pillowy long weekend ahead of me. The weather obviously heard me commenting on the seemingly mild Winter and Kobe is now covered in a thick layer of snow; I can't even see out of the windows. The flurry started on the morning of the Friday holiday, when I awoke to Lisa squealing about the snow outside. Sure enough, the cars downstairs all looked like iced cupcakes and a particularly thrilled kid was building a little snowman on one of the soakwells. We didn't let that stop us though - we were going make the most of the break rain, hail or flake.

The original plan for Friday was to go out to Osaka and have a poke around some of the roads less travelled, but a combination of the weather and wondering whether everything would be shut for the public holiday meant a couple of abrupt changes. Harborland popped into my head for some reason - there are a few different "cruise" ships that depart from the port there and tootle around Osaka Bay. We've watched them come and go plenty of times but until this point we hadn't made any solid plans to get on one. As we came down off the mountain toward sea level, the snow tapered off and by the time we got to the harbour, it seemed like awfully nice cruisin' weather.

Our vessel of choice was the Concerto, a ship the size of a big ferry that goes out for two hour-ish lunch, afternoon tea and dinner cruises every day. We ponied up for a Chinese buffet lunch, half expecting to be banished to the bowels of the ship, but instead ended up on the top floor in a long dining room with chandeliers, white table cloths and a grand piano. Once everyone had filtered in, the ship pulled away and we watched the Harborland skyline disappear over our glasses of wine.

100% Lisa approved

The buffet itself was the best meal I've had in a long time and way beyond what you'd expect to be served in bain maries; gorgeous pieces of fish, crispy prawns, proper dim sum and just about anything you can imagine putting in a bowl. Everything was piping hot and elbowing children and old people out of the way of the dumpling tray was entirely optional. While we were eating, a very well dressed flutist and pianist stood up and played merrily away in the background. It was a very civilised change from the usual buffet accompaniment.

Usually just belches and screaming children

We felt extremely posh by this stage but we probably shouldn't get too accustomed to this kind of thing - if it were happening in Perth, I imagine it would cost approximately 3 bajillion dollars. We didn't need dinner though, so that's $10 that needs to be taken into the final calculation.

After a gloriously lazy Saturday, we adopted our Friday plans and headed out to Osaka on Sunday. We skirted the parts we spend most of our time in and headed straight for what's known as Amemura (short for America-mura, "America Village"), a nest for scowling people in baggy trackpants. By night it manages to emulate America in the worst way possible, with people falling down from a combination of drink and punches, but during the day it's just mildly unpleasant. They do have a mini Statue of Liberty though, so I suppose that's a plus.

The scenery abruptly changed as we headed into the Horie area and found ourselves surrounded by couples carrying their jumper-clad babies (or jumper-clad dogs) and wandering in and out of the little boutiques along the road. This must officially be the Japanese capital for fluffy, shivering dogs if the number of "Doggie Cafes" are any indication; we even saw a man carrying a shopping bag with a patient, googly eyed head sticking out the top. It was a really nice change of pace from the usual "god dammit get out of my way" atmosphere of Osaka and we'll probably go back there the next time we want to drool over homewares and trendy clothes (which happens more often than I'd like to admit).

Lisa doesn't want me to tell you this, but she finally managed to find fuzzy shorties to put on under her skirt; she expected to pay 500 yen and we found them for 199. I pointed out that she could buy 2 and still be ahead - by how pleased she is with them so far, she probably wishes she had. On the way home we bought a bottle of bubbly and had our "official" engagement drinks at home - it doesn't count unless it's champagne, it seems. There'll be no shortage of drinks over the next week now that we've broken the seal - we've got a big bash with one of my old schools on Friday that I'm sure will be worth braving the weather in our fuzzy shorties for.

...fuzzy shorties, hee hee.