Chill Cafe

Kumamoto Castle

View from the top of the castle keep.

Some of the fancier looking rooms inside the castle.

I was surprised at how much I wanted to go back to Amakusa during the first day of orientation in Kumamoto, but after figuring out how to navigate the maze of shopping arcades and packed streets around our hotel in down town Kumamoto, I grew to become really envious of the JETs that lived within reasonable traveling distance of the city.  For me, Kumamoto is more than enough ‘city experience’ for me to get excited and wide-eyed.  What makes Kumamoto even cooler is when you realize you can see the castle’s soaring keep from all different parts of the city at unexpected times, like when you just happen to pass by a tiny road that aims toward the castle.  

The second day of orientation consisted of four seminars that felt a little too long (1.5 hours), especially for the seminars on topics which you already heard a lot about, but since there was more specific information on various topics, like what type of lessons and games to play with your different grade levels, what to look for when food shopping, and how to dispose of the giant, vicious, aggressive, poisonous centipedes that sometimes invade your house and hang out in your shoes until you decide to put them on in the morning and either squish them into a blue gooey mess or get bitten and have to go to the hospital.   

Yes. This is a pizza with tortilla chips on top.

This is the entirety of Chill Cafe. It's that small.

Awful story: so after lunch I went with one of the other JETs to the Best Denki (電気）store (think Best Buy) to look at the Mac Store, and we were surprised to find that the Mac Books there were $100+ dollars cheaper than they are in America and on the Apple Japanese website. However, I thought we had to get back at 1:10 instead of 1:30, so we ended up walking/running a few blocks back to the International Center only to find that we were a.) 20 minutes early and  b.) made ourselves hot and sweaty for no good reason.  Oops.  One extra person dislikes me in this world.

Rice and lamb in a perfectly spherical serving.

Happier story:  After orientation for the day, our gun 群 (pronounced ‘goon’) leader, the group leader of JETs local to Amakusa and nearby islands, took us out to a tiny cafe that his friend owned in Kumamoto.  By tiny, I mean that the entire place, seating area + kitchen, was about the size of a short bus.  This place definitely fits into the ‘whole-in-the-wall’ category.  Run by a tall white guy with the thick, black rimed glasses that are in style (with the hipsters) and tattoos all over his arms and his Japanese wife, the place serves a strange amalgam of Mediterranean/Greek foods and other random things, like a dish of rice, feta, and lamb, a pizza with tortilla chips and BBQ chicken on top, strange soy milk sauce pestos, and all sorts of drinks and smoothies.  Finding this place was like being told where there is a secret gold mine or buried treasure.  The food was outstanding, the music very hip(ster?), and the atmosphere of being crammed into a tiny place with only 8/9 seats with mostly gaijin and one or two hip young locals who are loyal patrons was definitely something to remember.  Also, and I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure the owner is addressed as Blue.  

The outdoor shopping streets of Kumamoto.  This is at night when everything has already shut down, so there aren't many people out and about.