Despite the shadow of tragedy on the city's recent past, Kobe is actually a cool place to go. "Kobe ichi-ban!" (number one) as Mike remarked to a pair of Japanese students on the boat ride.

The seafront amusements we sampled included the world's tiniest rollercoaster, riding giant animatronic animals, a movie called Biohazard 4-D Executer (the language barrier didn't detract too much from our enjoyment of this) and an all-you-can-eat Brazilian restaurant.

Plus, being idiots with a video camera, we did a few stupid dares. I'll spare you the details of these.

Our intrepid quartet. Back row (l-r): Andrew (Oregon, USA), Matt (Toronto, Canada), Dan (that's me of course.) The inverted fool in the foreground is my flatmate Mike, who hails from New Jersey (pronounced "Joisey".)

Just in case we were in any doubt whatsoever as to which country we were in, the sight of adult women giggling wildly whilst riding giant mechanical Pandas might just have provided us with a bit of a hint.

There's always one twat who starts acting up behind you when you're having your photo taken directly under the cold steely butt of a big metal Giraffe. Matthew Gedge, take a bow.

Scene from my new movie Moby Dick II - the Japanese Whaling industry gets what's coming to it. The film is largely allegorical and is set against the background of the Japanese economic downturn in the 1990s. In the climactic scene, the Whale belly flops onto the Tokyo stock exchange. Very symbolic.

This is in Toys R Us: Mike and myself are playing a variation of Janken (paper, scissors, stone) favoured by foolhardy schoolboys. In the best tradition of all Japanese games, there is a punishment for the loser. That is why both of us have baseball bats. As you can see, I'm in trouble.