Emily made it to 7am before waking, and then dozed another hour between us in the massive bed. Breakfast was a tense affair as she was very picky and then got agitated, so we called it a day and left our food half-eaten.
The forecast was for cloud then rain, but it was quite sunny when we finally got our act together and went out for the day. We had settled on going up Mount Rokko, but this involved quite a convoluted journey. First we walked 10 minutes to Sannomiya station, where we picked up a train for the short hop to Rokko station. There we got on a crowded bus for a 15 minute ride uphill, trying to keep on our feet as we swayed round several bends. I was annoyed that I was struggling to hold Emily while a boy of about ten sat close by without offering his seat to me. I'm sure the same would have happened at home too though, and sometimes people are nervous about addressing a foreigner. Getting off the bus we leapt straight aboard a cable car (funicular railway to you and me). The 10 minute trip was wonderful; the ascent was very steep, through slopes of natural woodland and some attractive hydrangeas at the trackside. As we climbed we began to get great views back towards the city and the sea. At the top station we just had time to gaze from the viewing area back over Kobe before we got another bus for a quarter of an hour ride to the Garden Terrace.
This was a new development of a few good quality shops and eateries, set in pretty English-style gardens. In fact, I was struck by the British influence, down to the Stratford-on-Avon postcards, and roast beef lunch at the grandiose cafe we picked. It's not surprising, I suppose, since it was at Mount Rokko that the first golf course in Japan was opened by an Englishman. The beef set lunch turned out to be very good but nouvelle cuisine in size, so no hearty roasties, just a few strips of meat with an arrangement of vegetables.
My fish set was also small but elegant. The restaurant had a terrace with a superb panorama taking in Osaka and adjoining Kobe with all their manmade islands.
It was getting late for Emily's nap, so we put her in the carrier and set off to explore. Not far away we stumbled upon a landscaped valley with multiple attractions. There were chairlifts, a boating lake, grass-sleds, bouncy castles, trampolines, go karts, and a miniature train encircling a tiny petting farm. They were also advertising a snow festival, and lo and behold, we came across a large patch of the stuff, about three feet deep and fifty feet square.
Everything was pricey; luckily Emily seemed happy to watch the train and look at the animals from a distance. We decided to splash out on a go kart though. It was a very tight squeeze, with Nick's knees up near his ears and me hugging Emily close as we made the circuit of the small off-road course.
Despite, or perhaps becasue of, all the stimulation and being given more-or-less free rein to run around, Emily got upset a few times. By 4.30 it was high time to leave anyway, so we made our way back to the city via the painstaking route, with her getting more fed up with each stage of the journey. We had planned to eat dinner on the way but instead returned to the hotel to let her play for an hour first and eat a sachet of gloop.
By now it had started raining quite heavily, so at seven we left the hotel under borrowed brollies and walked down the street as far as an Asian restaurant we had seen earlier, the Oriental Frog, which was advertising Vietnamese and Thai food. Inside we found it to be quite fancy, with about eight tables separated by colourful veils, which although see-through lent an air of intimacy and romance. Hardly the place for a lightning fast dinner accompanied by a fretful toddler! We did our best to entertain Emily while we wolfed down each dish, the whole experience taking 40 minutes. Although she had eaten, she naturally wanted to try our food, but it was extremely spicy so we had to refuse, which didn't help.
Back in our room we finished Emily's bedtime routine as a thunderstorm brewed outside. Once she was asleep we rolled back the curtain and sat on the bed in the dark with glasses of wine, watching the lightning and listening to the thunder and accompanying downpour as the storm passed over the city. It seemed almost like turning back the clock to the days before Emily was even a twinkle in our eyes.
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