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 HyÅgo 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: å—京町; Simplified Chinese: å—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 (é–¢å¸å»Ÿ, KanteibyÅ).
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*