Meat Fest and Kobe Matsuri Parade

We have certainly been enjoying the food in Japan. But on occasion, you just get that craving for large amounts of meat. Luckily, Mike met a great half-Argentinian/half-Japanese guy who told us about Brasiliano, a churrascaria (aka Brazilian BBQ) in Kobe at Harborland. We met him and some other friends for lunch there on Sunday. And we certainly got our meat fix. (As you can see in the picture below, they even have Brazilian BBQ plastic food; amazing!)

Before lunch, we participated in Japan's biggest pass-time: shopping. Mainly, we picked up some shoes and some clothes for the kids at Uni Qlo, a Japanese clothing store that reminds us of a slightly hipper Old Navy, selling reasonably priced casual-wear (but for tiny people; Mike can't shop here, or really anywhere else in Japan that we have found to date.) The first ten times we read the name, we thought it said Uni Glo, but apparently it's Uni Qlo; the name stands for Unique Clothing, you know in a hip trendy Q sort of way. We have heard that Uni Qlo is attempting to make "the leap" and has opened its first couple of stores in the U.S. So check it out.

After lunch, we saw a little bit of a Japanese a capella concert taking place outside on the deck area. Featuring a beat-boxing-Japanese-Boyz' to Men looking group called Permanent Fish. (No idea on the name. We've pretty much given up on trying to explain these sorts of things and are just going to go with it!) They actually sounded pretty good.

Today was also Kobe Matsuri, a summer-time street festival in down-town Kobe, near the Sannomiya Station. We got off there on the way home to check it out and got to see most of the parade. The festival is in its 38th year, making it one of the newer festivals around. It was an extremely colorful, multi-cultural, and high-energy mix of marching bands, baton twirlers, drum bands, municipal and international floats, and dancers and other flashy acts, many in the flamboyant style of Carnival: