Kumamoto

A day of walking around they city….no trikes today

It is a joy to return to a city and a hotel we love. The rest is gravy.
We are on a quest today to find a special calendar that we bought last year in Japan. It is created by a Japanese artist and features incredible drawings (featuring cats, of course). This led to a good day of exploring and miles of walking, but alas we couldn’t find the calendar.

Barry is always yearning for a good bowl of Ramen and he will try anything. This ramen is a Kumamoto specialty called Black Ramen. Sadly, he didn’t like it as it tasted charred to him. I never thought he would leave a bowl of ramen unfinished, but today it happened. He’ll still eat ramen, just not this one.

This rugged old girl is looking kind of rough around the edges. She was curious and responded to our voices but she looked less than impressed by us. Makes me sad to see cats on the street living wild.

Kumamoto’s signature man hole cover is quite pretty.

We were wandering through a department store and the image of Shohei Otani was everywhere. He is beloved by Japanese people and respected for his skill as a baseball player as well as his understated ethical nature. He has so many endorsements it is hard to imagine how big a team he requires to manage his affairs.

Seiko watches endorse Ohtani and he is the face of their product in Japan.

Ohtani is also the ambassador for this Japanese company’s beverages, including green tea.

The artwork featuring cats is the work of the artist, Hajim,whose calendars we are searching for. Momentarily we were very excited. However, the only calendar they sold was very small with a small drawing on each month. Disappointing. We will continue looking when we get to Kagoshima as that is where we found the calendar last year.

We thought that this store might sell the calendar. If you want to feel a bit out of your depth and old, visit an Anime shop like this one. It is called Animate and it covers 4 floors with music blaring. Every bit of space is crowded with a huge range of merchandise, all of which relate to manga and anime. T shirts, toys, stuffed animals, books…you name it, it is here. A range of customers from kids to adults were in their happy place in this store.

Ice cream cones gave us the kickstart we needed to keep going.

We like the covered shopping areas that continue for blocks in Japanese cities and town. It is always interesting and good people watching. It is now evening and we need to find some supper and find our way back to our hotel...and yes, we got lost. Today has been a workout…it is a lot harder to walk than ride. But a nice change nonetheless.

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