Takarazuka and Taiko in Kobe

"I'm old enough not to cafe too much

About what you think of me
But I'm young enough to remember the future
And the way things ought to be"

Slowly getting up and moving this morning, Suzuki-san had not only cleaned everything up from the mess that was the big dinner last night, but had gotten up and prepared breakfast before we had even started moving.

I never eat this well. Ever.

After being thoroughly spoiled, we headed down to the station and hopped on a train to downtown Takarazuka where we stopped to visit the famous Takarazuka Music School, where the Takarazuka Revue has been performing for 100 years, and has quite the cult following in Japan. The Revue is an all-female troupe that performs Broadway-style productions of western musicals and other, homegrown plays and adaptations. They are known for their amazing song and dance ability, as well as the ability of their otokoyaku, women acting in men's roles. We stopped by the entrance hall, which looked more like a train station than a school.

Beautiful, almost art-deco style buildings

Entrance gate. It was a show day, and there was quite a crowd inside

There is a full salon and photo studio where one can get dressed up and made up like one of the actresses.
There were some example before-and-after photos, too

Holy make-up, Batman!

The longer we were there, the more Sumi wanted to see the show. Suzuki-san and I thankfully were able to talk her down. I have a feeling we'll be seeing a show next time we're in Kansai....

After dragging Sumi from the theater, we passed the backstage doors where some obsessive fans were waiting, some with impressive cameras, for their favorite Takarazuka stars to enter or leave. Beyond the school, down a beautiful tree-lined lane along the river, we came upon the Osamu Tezuka museum. 

The street sign reads Tezukaosamukinenkanmae.
Translation: In Front of the Osamu Tezuka museum.
How creative.

Who is Osamu Tezuka? By all accounts, he is the grandfather of Japanese manga and anime. I knew him from Astro Boy and The White Lion (aka Kimba the White Lion) and had heard of a few others, such as Black Jack and Princess Knight, but I had no idea how prolific and important he was in Japanese comic history. I won't bore y'all with the details, but it was something like walking through a Walt Disney museum.

Hi no Tori, the phoenix.

All of his characters had their hands and feet cemented in a walk of fame,
including Hi no Tori

I'm not messing with either of them...

Sumi, Black Jack, Suzuki-san

There was much more we could have seen in Takarazuka, but we had a date with some drums in Kobe., plus we were hungry. Suzuki-san knew of a nice Chinese restaurant near her old apartment, so we headed over for some Dim Sum before the "concert".

Various dumplings and shrimp rangoon. I couldn't eat the shrimp, but
it didn't matter. Everything I could eat was amazing, and there was plenty to eat

mini-ramen. It was a cup of ramen with a chicken base, scallions, bean sprouts, and a slice of roasted pork.

And then the desserts came. A whole plate of them.

And extra saabisu (service) from the chef. Melon puree and a
sweet almond and milk treat shaped like tofu. 

As good as the food was, I couldn't believe how good the desserts were. There is no Chinese restaurant of this caliber in Milwaukee, or probably Wisconsin. Simply amazing. This is why we don't lose weight when we come to Japan. No matter how many miles we bike, there is food like this.

Suzuki-san had managed to find a taiko performance by an award-winning high school club in downtown Kobe. So we headed down to see the show.

Downtown Kobe has a long park area along the bay.

These kids have an after school taiko club at their schools. It's common for Japanese high schoolers to be involved in clubs like these, and they can take up a lot of their time. These guys practice every day. Keep in mind, there's no teacher or director in charge (well, there is, but more for support and administrative help than anything else), this is done entirely by the students. There were three different groups, one of alumni (college students) and the other two, I believe, were two different high school groups. They were also teaching some foreigners taiko, and had them up for a song. The show was really fun and well done. Rather that describe it or show pictures, I'll post a bit of the show. They had drums of all types and sizes, cymbals, gongs, shinobue, koto and dancing. It was quite impressive.

After the show, we had to hurry to catch our train back to Tokyo. We said goodbye to Suzuki-san after such a short, but enjoyable visit, and headed back to Asakusa, where we arrived at 9:30, too tired to go out, but in need of food, as it had been over 8 hours since lunch. The hotel restaurant was an Indian restaurant called Doli on the ground floor, so we figured we'd stumble down there.

Sumi got the "Ladies Set". It was not Rasoi, but very good, in it's own right.
I had vegetables and rice. Didn't think a picture was warranted...

Full and tired, we headed back upstairs to sleep. Just one more day, with a lot to do before we leave.