As the plane descends over Osaka Bay, the clouds form a guard of honour. They are textured, cube-like, and stagnant in the noonday heat. There is a rose-hue on their wispy epaulettes, which I can trace on the monstrous shadows cast in the sea below.

Gazing down at the painted exhausts of motorboats, I wonder what secrets this curious, beckoning land might yield.

***

I am in Kobe for a week, with the intention of orienting myself, and preparing for a walking pilgrimage which will take some weeks to complete.

That is, if this pilgrim’s legs are willing.

My bus driver puts on white holy gloves and makes announcements with the delicate precision of a man wearing crochet. Above his head, a notice explains boarding procedures.

After giving your ticket to the driver, he will check both zone and expiration date, before ‘drilling a hole in your ticket’.

The journey from the airport has been a cacophony of bridges upon bridges. This is Japan’s industrial heartland, and shiny digging machines are organised in their hundreds on pier gangways, awaiting onward journeys. As a child I would play with Scalextric and dream of once driving on such roads.

***

Kobe resides in my shadowed memory for a few reasons.

A global agreement was signed here in 2003, to control the sale of tobacco around the world. The facts and deleterious effects of smoking had been long established, and this was a declaration of intention by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that its citizens be protected. Looking at the figures since (smoking in Japan has dropped by 50% since 2003; global smoking has reduced by 33%), the Kobe Declaration was an astonishing success.

I also recall a musician friend caught up in an earthquake here, in 1995. This memory is less welcome. Just as Australia has its poisonous fauna, Japan has its unstable plates.

The sight of the tsunami provoked by Sendai’s 2011 earthquake is a recurrent horror in my head. I think of those drivers in tiny cars, heading down the road only to be confronted with a towering flood of water, fire and concrete hurtling towards them.

Sometimes I wonder about their fate, and hope that somehow, they found safe passage.

My musician friend was stranded in Kobe, among 210,000 destroyed buildings. In time, his passage home was assured.

***

After rest, I make my way out into the evening air at Kobe port. I have no particular cuisine in mind, as I figure there will be time for all.

Through dense tropical humidity, and across two pedestrian bridges, I make my way to a small Korean restaurant that is well reviewed.

It is empty.

The young woman running the show is warm and welcoming. We have fun as we negotiate my order, each using our smartphone translations. I point to a Suntory on draught, and choose small dishes that suggest a vegetable base. I am not one for un-credentialed meat, even if it is from Kobe.

The girl returns after a few minutes, showing me her phone.

‘Please excuse me…’, the text begins, and she explains that a large group is scheduled for 8:30pm, and they may be noisy, and she hopes this is OK.

As the restaurant’s only dangling customer, I’m delighted for her business, and for the potential company. This news also boosts my confidence in the cuisine.

Her walls are festooned with stuff. Greetings, jokes, cuddly toys, sports references, and a television hammering a pop music channel with pink dancers.

Into this space, thirty salarymen arrive.

***

Each wears a suit, most have thick hair grown long, and some carry work satchels. They are aged between 30 and 50.

The men file in, in small chatty groups. It is Friday evening, and they are on a mission.

My solitary restaurant becomes a carnival.

A man collects cash from his colleagues and pays up-front. Meantime, the kitchen has prepared starters – a Korean dipping food, attended by a boiling soup kept alive with burners. And beer. Plenty of beer.

Carefully, some place their satchels on a table opposite me. These artefacts are cared for, are of excellent quality, and seem a signifier of a professionalism which now, on Friday evening, can stand down. A gong is sounded and one man stands up to make a speech of appreciation directed to the gentleman at the top table. He is gracious as he drinks in the compliments. When the words end, top man diligently walks the room and clinks the beer glasses of each of his colleagues. One by one they stand up to do so. None is over 5’9”.

I signal for one Suntory more.

I have read that tourists garner a poor reputation in Japan. In exploring the gay scene in Kobe – my only research for the trip thus far – I discover that Japanese gay men are not so interested in their Western peers. The reasons are complex, and I may understand more, in time. It is true, nonetheless, that as these people entered the restaurant, not one acknowledged my presence.

What’s the occasion, and who is the main man?, I ask my young waitress friend, who is now a service wizard, four tankards to the hand.

She whips out her phone. As she taps I observe her pearl fingernails, three centimetres long. Each index is distinguished by a beaded mounting, in the shape of a cross. Busy as she is, she seems relaxed, although her precise emotion is difficult to discern behind the mask.

‘Their business has done well’, she writes, referring to the salaried men. ‘And he’s the department boss, I think’, referring to the clinker of many glasses.

She is approached with more cash, and a further order of alcohol.

I return to my egg salad, an invisible man beside thirty visibly happy men.