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| Need energy... scrambled eggs, rolls, and mini sausages! |
I decided to head over to Kobe today. While it's probably best known for its cattle (Kobe beef!), this city is also famous for its sake breweries and the Arima Hot Springs. Funny enough, I didn't hit either of those locations today, and yet still had a fantastic time. :)
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| Kobe city center, near the Sannomiya station |
Interestingly, Kobe felt very different from Osaka. While there were also copious amounts of tourists, Kobe felt international in a way that Osaka doesn't. Maybe it was the bistros and cafes, or the small bespoke shops...? While lunch sets of tea and cakes tempted me, I resisted because I was on a mission: to find Chinatown!
Kobe's Chinatown (called Nankinmachi) was about a 20 minute stroll away from the main train station.
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| I found it! |
This was purely a tourist's Chinatown, with no businesses geared towards locals in sight. Instead, the narrow street was jammed full of food stalls, all weirdly selling similar fare. It was all northern cuisine from what I could gather (dumplings, Peking duck, Shanghai dumplings, mapo tofu), sprinkled with old standby dishes (fried rice, spring rolls, shumai). None of it actually looked very good, to my disappointment. My dreams of a chow fun lunch sadly drifted away.
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| The streets were mobbed! |
Oh well! After Chinatown, I decided to head up... literally. Kobe is a seaport town surrounded by mountains, which is one of my favorite scenery combinations. A cable car line was nearby and I couldn't pass up the chance to ride in one.
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| A cable car! They call this a "ropeway", which sounds so distressingly fragile! |
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| Eeep! The cable car went up faster than I anticipated. Slightly scary to see the ground moving away! |
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| Getting a beautiful view as the cable car ascends |
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| Looking down at a waterfall. Visitors can hike up, but I decided to do the walking downhill instead. |
The cable car ride only took about 5 minutes, but seemed much longer as we zoomed upwards. Once I reached the top though, I was greeted with a pretty garden to browse through.
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| Pretty gardens and pretty scenery! |
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| The Glassshouse. There are pretty plants here, and also a nice exhibition on herbs and spices. |
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| The roses weren't in bloom, but there were some gorgeous flowers on display. |
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| I think this is a poppy? |
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| Peaceful places to sit and rest inside the greenhouse |
At the back of the greenhouse, there was a small public herbal footbath. It only cost 100 yen to sit and relax there, and I could't resist ! The water was hot and soothing, great for my tired feet.
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| Hm. On second thought, I hope there weren't too many germs in this! |
As I relaxed, I was also treated with this fantastic view:
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| City of Kobe, waaaay down below |
After a 10 minute soak, I was ready to head downhill. Part of the walk was down a paved path, but as I got closer to the bottom, there was about 15 minutes of cobblestone steps to descend. This was surprisingly hard on my knees!
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| Heading down |
Towards the bottom, I passed by the waterfall I first saw from the cable car. It was pretty neat to have seen it from two completely different angles. The waterfall was really beautiful, and if I didn't have a train to catch, I'm sure I could have sat there for a long time!
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| Nunobiki waterfall |
It seemed amazing that all this nature was just steps away from a bustling city. Kobe was a great little city to visit, very much worth my sore feet and knees! Golden Week is sadly winding down, and so I will try to do some relaxing things in the next couple days before I have to head back to work!
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