More Goldenweek goodness
So yesterday and today I've been in Kobe.
Yesterday was a decent day, a lot of walking. And I mean a lot.
I was mostly just walking around trying to find some interested things to see and take pictures of, but it didn't work out too well. I ended up walking around in three big circles... mostly because I was walking around the harbourfront and motomachi shopping strip.
Saw a lot of neat things, took many pictures. Helped out a Japanese group find their way around town (how weird is that?), ate lunch at a harbourfront restaurant, and strolled around in this huge block of different malls. And I had gelato... yum..
Anyway, I also ended up going to Osaka for dinner with one of the other guys in Nagano and his friend visiting from Canada.
Since he got in later than I did, I killed some time by riding around the Osaka loop... which is a huge circle around the city. That was fun, mostly because I was surfing the web on my cellphone more than anything.
But I did manage to get back to my hotel just in time thanks to the magic of Suica/Icoca! I love how I can just run through the gate by tapping my wallet on a pad. haha.
So above was my so-so day of touring. not much happened then.
Today on the other hand was more interesting... so far (it's not over yet! :P)
I started out the day by going to one of Kobe's only "Japanese style" gardens a bit north of the harbourfront and Motomachi station. It was really nice and quaint, and park means many pictures so this is no exception. So I have to slim down the amount of pictures I'm going to upload and then get on that... eventually.
But afterward, I headed down to Sannomiya station to grab some cheap lunch at Yoshinoya. Cheap lunch rocks, by the way.
Oddly enough, while there, I ran into a retired US Army something or another, when he started talking to me in perfect english. It was weird because he looked pretty Japanese, and the fact that he started out the conversation with a "where are you from, sport" threw me way off. Apparently he's been in Japan for some 60 years, worked for the Embassy, visited Hiroshima a year after the bombing (that must have been eerie), and is 85 years old and pretty darn energetic. That was cool.
Anyway, after that I decided to go to the harbourfront again to go see some more of the meriken park, which I sort of skimmed through yesterday. To my surprise, the annual Kobe Meriken park and meat festival was going on!
So, that means I didn't have to pay excessive amounts of money to try some of that world famous Kobe beef.
And yes, it was ridiculously tasty. I think I'm going to go back there tomorrow for lunch. haha. 600yen for a decently big portion is definitely worth it. Plus it came with a small cup of Kobe wine, which was also pretty good. Beside the Kobe beef venue, they had the Kobe wines, which were grown and fermented in Kobe. They had both a white and a red wine, and they were both really good. The white wine was sweet, and the red wasn't very acidic. Maybe I'll buy a bottle or two for when I go back home :P
I ended off my eating/drinking spree with a ball of ice covered in flavoured sugar in a flower shaped cup. A classy end, don't you think?
Anyway, that leads me up to here. So off to more walking around in circles! bye~
Yesterday was a decent day, a lot of walking. And I mean a lot.
I was mostly just walking around trying to find some interested things to see and take pictures of, but it didn't work out too well. I ended up walking around in three big circles... mostly because I was walking around the harbourfront and motomachi shopping strip.
Saw a lot of neat things, took many pictures. Helped out a Japanese group find their way around town (how weird is that?), ate lunch at a harbourfront restaurant, and strolled around in this huge block of different malls. And I had gelato... yum..
Anyway, I also ended up going to Osaka for dinner with one of the other guys in Nagano and his friend visiting from Canada.
Since he got in later than I did, I killed some time by riding around the Osaka loop... which is a huge circle around the city. That was fun, mostly because I was surfing the web on my cellphone more than anything.
But I did manage to get back to my hotel just in time thanks to the magic of Suica/Icoca! I love how I can just run through the gate by tapping my wallet on a pad. haha.
So above was my so-so day of touring. not much happened then.
Today on the other hand was more interesting... so far (it's not over yet! :P)
I started out the day by going to one of Kobe's only "Japanese style" gardens a bit north of the harbourfront and Motomachi station. It was really nice and quaint, and park means many pictures so this is no exception. So I have to slim down the amount of pictures I'm going to upload and then get on that... eventually.
But afterward, I headed down to Sannomiya station to grab some cheap lunch at Yoshinoya. Cheap lunch rocks, by the way.
Oddly enough, while there, I ran into a retired US Army something or another, when he started talking to me in perfect english. It was weird because he looked pretty Japanese, and the fact that he started out the conversation with a "where are you from, sport" threw me way off. Apparently he's been in Japan for some 60 years, worked for the Embassy, visited Hiroshima a year after the bombing (that must have been eerie), and is 85 years old and pretty darn energetic. That was cool.
Anyway, after that I decided to go to the harbourfront again to go see some more of the meriken park, which I sort of skimmed through yesterday. To my surprise, the annual Kobe Meriken park and meat festival was going on!
So, that means I didn't have to pay excessive amounts of money to try some of that world famous Kobe beef.
And yes, it was ridiculously tasty. I think I'm going to go back there tomorrow for lunch. haha. 600yen for a decently big portion is definitely worth it. Plus it came with a small cup of Kobe wine, which was also pretty good. Beside the Kobe beef venue, they had the Kobe wines, which were grown and fermented in Kobe. They had both a white and a red wine, and they were both really good. The white wine was sweet, and the red wasn't very acidic. Maybe I'll buy a bottle or two for when I go back home :P
I ended off my eating/drinking spree with a ball of ice covered in flavoured sugar in a flower shaped cup. A classy end, don't you think?
Anyway, that leads me up to here. So off to more walking around in circles! bye~
posted by Matt at
5/02/2006 11:22:00 PM
