Daytrip to Kobe

All 5 of us trained to Kobe for the day. Kobe seemed to be a much smaller and more laid-back place than its reputation, maybe it's because we just came from Osaka. Though famed for Kobe beef, none of the 4 visitors were interested. We ended up eating at a vegetarian restaurant, very popular with young women. We noticed John and Weiwei were the only men in the entire place.

Kobe port has a long history of foreign trade. It boasts a Chinatown, a mosque, and the Kitano area where foreign merchants built residences in the 1800s and now very popular with Japanese tourists. From there, mountains go right up to 900+ m.a.s.l. We did not go up for the view of Osaka bay from Mount Rokko (931m), as we had quiet a few satisfying panoramas walking around town.

View of the Kobe Port from the 24th floor of the Kobe City Hall. That's the Quantum of the Seas cruise ship at center left; so big that some of our group thought is was a building.


View to the hills.


Chinatown was busy, with one restaurant after another, plus stores selling packaged "souvenir food".


Uber Eats was also busy.


Lunch at the vegetarian restaurant Modernark pharm cafe. Excellent! Although explaining the resto's name to our Chinese friends was difficult. Lots of words games (I think).


Next stop, the Ikuta Shinto Shrine where a ceremony was in progress.






Then over to the Kitano-chō, a district containing foreign residences built in the 1800's. Many of the house are open to the public and popular with Japanese tourists.


And there was a fashion show when we visited Kitano-chō.


View.


Residence open to tourists.


The distinctive Denmark House.


Also in Kitano-Cho is the Kobe Mosque. Active and still looking good, it opened in 1935.


From Kobe, Weiwei headed back to Nagoya while the rest of us trained to Osaka Umeda and then walked home to Namba. Umeda has architecture.