Checking out Kobe

Oh my God! Are we going to be reading about Kusi and Eric's trip to Japan forever I hear you asking yourselves. And the answer is yes, yes, you probably are! This is going to be like one of those very long holiday slideshows, which people inflict on their friends and family, except mine is blog-stylee. This is because I keep looking at our Japan photos and thinking 'I must do a blog on that, and that, and that'. The options for blogs on Japan are many. In fact so much so that it's hard to decide which part of the trip to pick, so I end up doing nothing. Boo.

Anyway, here is an installment about our stay in Kobe. On one of the days we just decided to get in as many sights as possible. We started with the earthquake museum (pic above). Japan lies just where a number of continental plates meet and therefore is an earthquake territory. It has a couple of minor quakes every day. Most don't register that high on the Richter scale but in 1995 Kobe suffered a massive one in which 5,000 people died.

The museum was fascinating with an introductory virtual earthquake which is very convincing and pretty scary. It wasn't the may west (for my American relatives that is Irish rhyming slang for best) for a migraine sufferer so I cheated and kept my eyes closed for most of it, and was still impressed! They also had a number of English-speaking volunteers that talked to us about earthquake prevention. All in all, definitely worth the visit.

Right beside this was a sake brewery with a museum showing the intricate sake-making process. Seriously, when it comes to sake brewing the Japanese don't mess around. The sake is distilled from rice and can be drank either hot or cold and is pretty potent. It became Eric's official drink of our trip. The brewery gave us free samples (one of Eric's favourite things) and I have to say it was quite delicious.

They also dressed Eric up and let me take a photo of him in full sake-drinking get-up. Doesn't Eric look super happy with that big bottle. Pity it was just for the photo - they took it back after.

After the sake brewery we felt like a trip up into the hills behind Kobe via cable-car to check out the views over the city.

On our way back we walked around the area in Kobe where a number of foreign residents settled at the end of the 19th century. I can't remember what the area was called but knowing Japan it was probably called 'Foreign Town', or something like that. The houses of the residents have been renovated and are open to the public. We particularly liked this one (this is for you Ben!). The travel site describes this as "former house of Ben, an English hunter, and where fierce and rare animals he hunted (e.g. a huge polar bear and a moose) are displayed". It made me wonder what would be written about our place if was on a tourist trail. I don't think we are going to be a major attraction any time soon!

Anyway, speaking of hunting, we ended our day eating at a 'kaiten' sushi place, which is a restaurant in which the sushi sits on a revolving belt and you just pick which plate looks the tastiest. This kind of dining brings out the hunter in me because you spot something and you have to grab it before it goes past you and some other customer gets it instead. It's very easy to overeat at a place like this, though we managed to be relatively restrained. Surprising eh?

We both enjoyed our stay in Kobe and found it particularly good as a base to visit my family. It also had the best food that we saw on our trip. However, next time (!) we reckon we would spend just a day or two instead of six or seven. The reason was that as with most Japanese cities Kobe is super westernised so by the end of our time there we were ready to see a more traditional Japan, which luckily we did.

Before I sign off, the never-ending blogs on Japan was a joke by the way. Breathe sigh of relief! However there will probably be a couple more, interpersed with some foodie blogs and tales from Berlin.