But I wasn’t going to be able to follow too much more as the iPad went in the backpack, and we reclaimed the baggage and headed off to wait for the shuttle bus. That got us back into the heart of downtown Kobe, and a brief stroll took us to the next night's accommodation at Daiwa Roynet Sannomiya. The Perplexed Reader will possibly be scratching the noggin at this apparently wilful relocation, but you can sum it up, in one word: Luminaria.
I still wasn't sure what it actually was, but it seemed to be the explanation for a number of things including changed traffic flow from Sannomiya to the Okura.
In any case, the Okura is expensive, though booking ahead allows you to access any bargains on offer, and was probably booked out on Friday night anyway. With the Luminaria, you'd expect any specials on offer had long since been grabbed.
The Luminaria Factor meant that we weren't going to be spending Saturday night in Kobe since even a relatively modest establishment like the one I'm sitting in tapping this out on Friday morning was already booked out when Madam went looking.
Once we'd checked in there was a spell of trying on the new layers of insulation before we headed back to Sannomiya to sort out the travel pass and tickets side of things. That wasn't quite feasible at the time, given a queue that almost reached out the doors of a relatively small ticket office, and hunger pangs were starting to kick in, so we headed off in search of sustenance.
We'd already sighted a trattoria that opened at six a few doors down from the hotel, so that was an option, but we headed to the food hall at the Sogo department store, where I was told we could buy, and possibly taste some wine, and pick up dinner if there was something that caught the eye.
I'd left the reading glasses back in the hotel, so the wine shop we wandered through failed to deliver anything other than an obvious conclusion that Australian wine is, to the Japanese observer, pretty much a non-event. Plenty of labels from France and the Americas, judging by the little flags on the price tags, and a smattering from a variety of other sources, with Australia being one of the also fans.
We weren't carrying a corkscrew, so that was one reason for avoiding a purchase, didn't know what was for dinner (yet, so that was another) but, most importantly, didn't know where to start. I'm not inclined to head off and buy a bottle of something familiar just to have something to drink, and, in any case, we were going to the Luminaria after dinner, so that was a fourth reason to stick to beer.
In the food hall there were a number of I want to eat that items that caught Madam's eye, so that, basically, was game, set and match in the decision making process. I ended up with a bento tray with Kobe beef, rice and pickles on the side, and the convenience store beside the hotel provided a couple of large tins of the quite excellent Yebisu beer, so that was dinner.
After dinner, rugged up, we hoofed it over towards what, in retrospect, is a perfect example of the way the Japanese authorities handle events that attract significant crowds.