Welcome to irenelaw.com

We went to Kobe. It wasn’t planned, it was decided the night before hahaha… That’s how free and easy we were. No plan prior to traveling. Just bought flight ticket and booked hotel. We only decided where to go on the night before or the day itself.

To Kobe we went… We took the train as usual. How we ended up wanted to go to Kobe was because one of our Japanese friends is from Hyōgo Prefecture.

We decided to go to Port of Kobe but did not bother to take any public transport once we reached the station in Kobe, we just walked *LOL* According to the map, it’s not far but hehehe… It’s actually quite far but anyway our plan was to go into shops along the way rather than walked straight there so it’s not too bad.

Since it was already noon, we ended up at McDonald’s haha… People go to Kobe for Kobe beef, we went to McDonald’s instead 😛 Both are pork burgers. We had lunch, rest here, enjoyed the air-conditioning, and for toilet break before we continue walking.

We shopped quite a fair bit in Kobe, how funny can that be ;p Anyway, we walked, walked, walked, and walked based on where Google brought us. We came across a Chinatown looking place, we didn’t even know it’s their Chinatown *LOL* We were like… Are we in Japan or China?

Many shops selling Kobe beef but we thought maybe we could have it for our dinner when we head back to our station instead of at Nankin-machi because we thought it should be easy to find places for Kobe beef anywhere in Kobe. Our main aim at that point of time was to head to Port of Kobe before evening came, we were not hungry too.

Source from Wikipedia:
Nankin-machi (Japanese for “Nanjing town”) (Japanese: 南京町; Simplified Chinese: 南京町) is a neighborhood in Kobe, Japan located south of Motomachi station adjacent to the Daimaru Department Store and is a major tourist attraction. Considered as Kobe’s Chinatown, the area has over a hundred Chinese restaurants, shops, and a Chinese temple dedicated to Guan Yu (関帝廟, Kanteibyō).

See… That’s the thing when you don’t do any research when you travel hahaha… We didn’t even realized we’re in one of the major tourist attractions in Kobe hahaha…

Continue to walk… Walk… Walk… We were a bit regret for walking so far away! *LOL* So tired! We saw the Kobe Port Tower from far and psyched ourselves that we’re almost there hahaha… Finally…

It’s a must to take photo of the tower LOL!! The tourist thing that anyone would do 😛 Hahaha… Next, our plan was to hunt down Be Kobe at Meriken Park.

Views of the surrounding…

Found Be Kobe! Look at the queue to take photo! 😀 Good thing that with the queuing, everyone got the chance to take photo by taking turn rather than just shove their ass in front of you even though you arrived first. Japan loves to queue! Hehehe… It’s my first time encounter a queue to take photo of a landmark hahaha…

Just quickly took few photos, kind of shy to pose in front of so many people and took such long time to take photo. The queue kept getting longer and longer!

Left: Saw the Mosaic Big Ferris Wheel located in Harborland. Was tempted to walk over there but we did not, was too tired, all we wanted to do was to find the nearest train station to go back to our hotel. We didn’t know what’s that building too! Haha… Apparently it’s a shopping and entertainment district between JR Kobe Station and the waterfront of Kobe’s port area. Now that I’m doing this post, then I know… Hahaha!

Right: While we walked through some old shops, we came across this sculpture, Girl on Dolphin(here’s the coordinate 34°41’8″N 135°11’6″E). We didn’t even know where we were!

We finally went back to the train station and decided to have our dinner there. Thinking that we might be able to find a restaurant serving Kobe beef but sadly there was none… Oh well… We just settled our dinner at one of the eateries. We had sashimi don(Â¥810) and beef don(Â¥810). The menu was all in Japanese, we just ordered based on the photos and some kanji in sight ;p We added miso soup & pickles for an additional Â¥100 and shellfish soup & pickles for an additional of Â¥150.

There you go… After dinner, we took the train back to our hotel. It was so tiring, we walked soooooo much! That’s the end of the story why we didn’t eat any Kobe beef when we were in Kobe *LOL*

Back to Osaka trip post. We went to Arashiyama at Kyoto for a day trip. We took the train of course.


The views from the train ride.

Wikipedia:
Arashiyama is a district on the western outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. It also refers to the mountain across the ÅŒi River, which forms a backdrop to the district. Arashiyama is a nationally designated Historic Site and Place of Scenic Beauty.

Thanks to our Japanese friends who brought us here. I never know such place exists ;p Hehehe… Simply because I did not even do any research before going to Osaka hahaha!!

It’s so pretty! I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. It was summer 2018, it’s pretty hot! However, when we were there, it was overcast and it rained. The rain wasn’t heavy, just drizzling. This made the air even more humid.

Arashiyama has so many tourists! It’s summer, hence we didn’t bother to rent kimono, not even a yukata. It’s so hot even with my singlet and a skirt. I would have rent one if the weather was cooler.

Our first stop was the famous place for soba noodle in this district called Yoshimura (Japan, 〒616-8385 Kyoto, Ukyo Ward, Sagatenryuji Susukinobabacho, ３). The exterior doesn’t look like it’s a restaurant. You really need to do reservation, the queue is quite long! It’s located in the historical site where the Meiji period Nihonga painter, Manshu Kawamura, resided. You get to see awesome views and landscape here while dining.

The noodle in the photo is Ika Soba(Â¥1,278).

Left: Condiments for soba.

Right: This is where I had my very first cold soba in Japan. I love cold soba! I like my soba this way. Also, it’s my first time to learn that the soba water is meant to be drank with the sauce. Almost did a boo boo to pour the sauce away when my friend wanted to pour the soba water into my sauce cup. Something new learnt. Never in my life that Japanese restaurant in Malaysia served me that!! Hmm…

The photo above is my soba set(Arashiyama-Zen), it was one of the biggest set. It cost ¥1,482. It came with cold soba, rice topped with dried young sardine, buckwheat seed salad, and Kyoto pickles.

Left: The rice is from the Arashiyama-Zen set that I ordered, just want to show it up close. Noodle and rice in a set, that is so filling but not overwhelming because cold soba is quite refreshing and taste “clean”, it won’t burden your taste palette so you do not feel icky like as if you have too much of strong flavoured food.

Right: This should be Kyo-no Yasai Soba(Â¥1,278) if not mistaken.

We then walked around. There’s so many souvenir shops, ice cream shops, local produce shops, and eateries.

Beautiful views around. There’s countless shrines in this district too.

Tenryu-ji Temple which is ranked as the city’s five great Zen temples.

Left: A random eatery where the steam came out from the chimney caught my attention.

Roght: The famous Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. I didn’t take much photos here because too many people around.

There’s a shrine inside.

There’s so much to see but we didn’t have that much time. Before we called it a day, we bought ice cream! Many unique flavours but we opted for soymilk skin ‘yuba’ flavour(Â¥300), the cream coloured one is certainly not available elsewhere. It’s basically soymilk ice cream, very creamy and smooth, not too sweet too. I would love to try the bamboo and cherry blossoms but too bad I couldn’t eat that much! The ice cream is huge!

Before we called it a day… We went to Kimono Forest for a quick look. Love those fabric in the pillars which are made with fabric dyed using the traditional Kyo-Yuzen technique that can be seen on Yuzen Kimono in Kyoto. There’s around 600 pillars! Not many tourists here though because many people didn’t know about it. It’s very pretty at night when the pillars are light up but too bad we couldn’t stay till sun down unless we stay a night in Arashiyama. I would recommend you to at least stay a night or two here, it’s very different from the big city.

Man! The view is just breathtaking! I’m speechless! We just sat there at the river and enjoyed the view.

One last photo…

Stay tuned to see where we go next.