Enjoying Downtown Kofu
Urban Life in Yamanashi
Once it was a Daiei. Then a Topos. Then an Ogino. And now it’s an apartment building. Okajima to the North. Kofu Central Park to the West. To the South, you probably don’t want to go there. But why live in a seedy neighborhood? This is not where it gets complicated. This is where it gets very, very simple. I wanted to live downtown. There are some great places - Gurume Yokocho, Terasaki, Chicken Curry, Sakura-za, and more. The building itself is nice and it’s supposed to be super-duper best-available-technology earthquake safe-guarded. But the seediness. Well, I thought it was going to get better, shut up. New restaurants and shops were opening up and clubs were closing down. But soon those restaurants and shops were closing down and the clubs were just renovating. I thought the other residents of Duo Hills Kofu and I were going to make downtown Kofu a cleaner, classier place. Actually, I don’t know my neighbors all that well, so who knows what goals they have. But, for me - what all this really is - this is my neighborhood now. What can I do to make Kofu a better place? And so, a mission statement of sorts, I want to:
Let People Know About Cool, Local Stuff - What can this area offer you? I’m not going to try to change anyone’s mind about Kofu. Let’s enjoy the city for what it is, not for its similarities to other places.
Share Some Ideas About How to Improve Kofu - I have some thoughts, many of them exceedingly dumb.
Make A Tangible Something to Improve Kofu - I’d like to run a bricks and mortar… something. A B&B, a cafe, a shop, a gallery? For the foreign community, local Japanese folks, tourists, students? If I only I had relevant skills.
Crack into Local Media - To be featured on a local online magazine or on YBS would be a real accomplishment.
Take One of These Goals a Step Further - To help cool, local stuff get promoted, to pass on ideas to someone who can do something about it, to open a second… something, to be featured in wider media.