Baby restaurant!

Just when we thought Japan couldn't amuse us any more, we came across this. Th e Daimaru department store in Kobe has not only a big baby section and a baby changing area (see bare-arsed photo below), but also a baby restaurant where you can take your nipper for lunch. There's a wide choice of meals available, depending on the age of the diner, but Tom decided he'd like Oyakodon (chicken stew on rice), vegetable croquette with mushy peas and then biscuits for pud. A huge portion appeared, to which we all said "he'll never eat all that". He demolished the lot in five minutes flat and could have had more. We were both very impressed (again) by how well kids are looked after here.

He then sat as good as gold as we went to a posh Chinese restaurant for our lunch, after which Hiromi took us to an unusual cafe called Harimaya for a post-prandial coffee and snack. What is unusual about this chain of cafes is that everything is free, snacks and drinks. They make all their money from people buying boxes of their (rather excellent) rice crackers to take away. Interesting concept.

Tom then nodded off in the rucksack, but only managed half an hour's kip before he was woken by a couple of squealing tee nage girls. This would prove costly later on. We visited Sogo, downtown Kobe's other big department store, to see whether their baby facilities matched those at Daimaru. No nippers' dining room, but they did have a very good soft play area, where Tom was befriended and then thumped by two very fat young local lasses. I strolled around for a bit and managed to get him a pair of shinkansen pyjamas at half price. It's been quite a good trip for new clothes for him.

We decided before the trip that we'd buy a load of non-perishable Japanese food here and send it back to ourselves by sea freight, so we braved a big supermarket to stock up with mochi (rice cakes) and a variety of ingredients for Japanese stews, curries and other delights. They'll be dispatched tomorrow morning and should be with us in a couple of months.

We then made the usual train & bus journey back to Hiromi's flat, arriving just in time to give His Nibs his dinner, which he took well enough. His good humour ran out immediately thereafter though, and bath time was a very unpleasant affair, with Tom screaming as if in complete agony for a good 10 minutes. A bottle of milk seemed to placate him, however, and we haven't heard from him since he was put in his tent. Fingers crossed that tonight is as good as last night, when he only woke up once and went straight back to sleep after being re-plugged.